


Look On Down From The Bridge

by disenchantedkobrakid



Category: Bandom, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: 1980s, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Rock Band, Anal Sex, Dom/sub Undertones, Drug Abuse, Drug Use, F/F, F/M, Fluid Sexuality, Gay Sex, InsideBooze, LGBTQ Character, Las Vegas, Light BDSM, M/M, Multi, New York City, Oral Sex, Touring
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:40:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 28,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24604849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/disenchantedkobrakid/pseuds/disenchantedkobrakid
Summary: Ryan is the lead singer of the infamous band "Inside Booze", trying to numb every emotion left inside of him with booze.Brendon is the band's Mormon guitarist and after years of knowing him Ryan has to realize that one never really knows another person.Not when it's two broken people who don't want to open up.
Relationships: Ryan Ross/Brendon Urie, Ryan Ross/Pete Wentz, Sarah Orzechowski/Z Berg, Z Berg/Ryan Ross
Kudos: 15





	1. Quitter Happier

**Author's Note:**

> I've waited weeks so I could finally upload this. First I wanted to make sure to have written a decent amount of chapters before starting to upload and I feel like that's the case now. Honestly, fuck it, I want to share this story with you guys even though it's not even close to be finished.  
> Before you start reading, I want to annotate three things. First of all, this story is set in 1986 and at this point the band "Inside Booze" exists for about five years. Second, just so you get an idea, the style of the band would be pretty similar to the Smiths, the Replacements, a bit Fleetwood Mac and also Radiohead even though they came later. They're not hard rock because I don't see Ryan - who in this story is the lead singer - sing like that but Ryan doesn't consider them soft rock either so maybe something in between. And last thing, the chapter titles are taken from a playlist of mine with rather melancholic songs. Somehow they're always quite fitting.  
> Well, have fun reading now! I'll try to upload weekly though I hope I'll have enough motivation to write regularly.  
> Have a great day/night y'all. :)

I was just in our tour bus, getting my cock sucked by some roadie when Jon came in, interrupting us in the most annoying way. He looked surprised but he certainly didn’t look shocked and I thought that the possibility of someone walking in on me and the guy I had already forgotten the name of was pretty high considering we were being out in the open. Though maybe I was actually being out for someone catching us.

The younger guy who was actually much younger than me but who had assured me that he was eighteen had the courtesy to be ashamed, his cheeks turning slightly red, and I wondered what that feeling was like. I myself hadn’t been ashamed of anything in a really long time. Being a rock star certainly formed someone and I knew that it had formed me into a bad person. Everybody knew that but nobody pronounced that.

“C’mon, get out of here.” Jon eventually said towards the younger boy who was already grabbing his stuff and then left without saying another word. Spencer was at a party along with some roadies and Brendon was most likely in the bus’ back room, being the boring person he was. One could’ve thought that the guitarist of a famous rock band would’ve been all for sex, drugs and rock’n’roll but I often wondered why he was still part of our band.

It was probably because Brent – the former bassist – had met him and brought him to our practice where Brendon had performed pretty decent. Now Brent wasn’t part of _Inside Booze_ anymore but Brendon obviously still was and I figured that the only reason for that was that he wasn’t bad at playing guitar, participated in the song writing and also, it would’ve been hard to find a new guitar player who would’ve been good too, especially at this point.

We were touring through America, a tour with forty-two shows, I had counted, LA and New York even twice because there had been such a high demand in those cities. And even though I liked touring, even I gradually got tired of all of this – and only half of the tour was over yet.

We had started in New York and would finish in Las Vegas because that was where three of us were living – I had moved to New York years ago because I disliked everything about Las Vegas, the city I had grown up in. Right now we were either in Kansas and Colorado – I couldn’t even tell which state we were actually in.

Jon was still looking at me but not saying anything when he poured himself in some alcoholic liquid and I wondered how much I had already had of that. I didn’t even care about what I was drinking anymore, it was only important that it was something to numb all my feelings. And everything in the tour bus did that. Well, excluding the coffee that I usually drank the next day.

“Your zipper is still open.” My band mate then continued. It could’ve been funny but his expression was serious, too serious. Jon was always too serious, always trying to keep the band together but that wasn’t possible. Not anymore. I felt like even when he was drunk, he still couldn’t relax.

And being drunk was the usual state for most of us – excluding Brendon. As much as I often was wondering why we were keeping the Mormon, I also often wondered why he was even staying with us. Maybe even people like him wanted to be famous and would accept things they didn’t like.

The thing was, even Billie who was our manager and was therefore supposed to keep all our shit together, sometimes got drunk with us and often forgot things. I wondered if that made him a bad manager. But maybe it was unbearable to be sober around us. Well, for everyone but Brendon.

“Damn, how do you always manage to pick someone up at every place we’re at? Even here.” Jon laughed but he didn’t sound amused. “Is it because you’re both guys? Is it easier like that?” Jon was wearing thongs even though it was freezing outside and I suddenly started to wonder if our tour would had to be cancelled if we’d all get sick. Then I looked in his eyes again.

“I don’t think it’s because we’re two guys. No, I think it’s because I never seek a relationship. All I want is a one night stand and it’s easier like that.” I claimed thinking about the times I’d had sex with women. If two people wanted the same thing, only for one night, it was always easy, no matter what gender they had.

Jon nodded, maybe thinking about my former hookups or wondering why he himself didn’t try something like that. Though I knew that Jon wasn’t made for casual hookups. What he wanted was a relationship, love like in the movies, to grow old with another woman. I had never wanted that, I simply _couldn’t_ want that.

I used to hook up with women, back when we had started this band, back when everything had been so much easier yet so much more complicated, back when I had still felt things – when I had still been human. Over the course of time I’d had to realize that man pleased me more which was why I now only hooked up with them.

And there were many like me – so many – which I never would’ve expected. They came after shows, or were in diners we had eaten in. They were simply everywhere and I wondered if one day this would stop. I wondered if one day there would come the day where they wouldn’t want me anymore because I never would’ve wanted myself.

“You’re always using a condom if you fuck someone, right?” Jon eventually asked, completely out of nowhere, and I almost had to laugh because of that suddenness. Except the situation wasn’t funny at all. “Of course.” I replied and he nodded while I poured myself in another drink. It wasn’t just drinks I had consumed today. There was MDMA hidden under the pillow of my bunk. I knew, one had to be careful with that, I knew that, but I also knew that Jon didn’t like to see it in our bus which was why I was usually hiding it. And then, of course, there was coke which was so surprisingly easy to get these days that it was almost frightening. Though nothing frightened me anymore.

When we had formed the band a couple of years ago, Billie had read aloud an article about the disease process of HIV which had been so frightening that I had started to always use a condom, even thought about that when I was completely shitfaced because I certainly didn’t want to risk getting that disease. Too many people had already died of that.

Sometimes I wondered if that had been the only useful thing Billie had done in his position as our manager.

We had formed our band five years ago, back in 1981 when we had still been called _The Catchers_ , but shortly before we had released our first album, we had decided that we’d change our name or rather I had decided that. I had found the old name so boring plus apparently every band – no matter which genre – put a ‘the’ in front of their name – _The Beatles, The Replacements, The Beatles, The Stranglers_ and so on – it was quite tiring.

I had wanted something else from the beginning but right when we had started, the others had outvoted, probably because they had still been able to. But months later they hadn’t dared to do so anymore which was why Billie and I had decided to just change the name to _Inside Booze_ – something mysterious, alluring and maybe even more truthful than I’d ever admit.

Fortunately, Billie had always been rather on my side than on the other’s. It was actually sad to think of a band as a war going on between two parties but it was like that. I had been alone on my side but then I had found Billie with whom I had immediately felt a spiritual connection, and maybe that was why he still stuck to my side. I certainly knew that there weren’t many people I liked – I even disliked most of my band – but I really liked Billie. And that was worth something.

Sometime later I saw that Spencer had come back from whatever party he had attended, obviously high and being unnaturally happy which I hated. I myself had never taken drugs to be happier because that’d never be the case. No, the reason why I took drugs was to simply numb all the feeling that were left in my mind – and those weren’t many.

Most of the time I was indifferent about things. A show here, another one there, that was all fine. At some point it had become my life, it had become all of our lives, and sometimes I caught myself wishing that we had never made it so far, that we had never gotten as big as we were now.

There were few situations where I really showed emotions, I even tried to remember the last time that had been the case.

Spencer was mumbling unidentifiable things and then he collapsed on the sofa, a few feet next to me, fast asleep, which left Jon, me and the infinite sadness that I hated so much.

“Isn’t that great?” Jon eventually asked, way too enthusiastically and I nodded even though nothing was great. A couple of years ago I certainly had thought that touring through America for two and a half months would be a dream but now, after we’d been on tour for three albums, I knew that it was the complete opposite. The only good thing about being on tour was the constant access to all sorts of drugs.

“Okay, I’m going to… There’s stuff I need to do.” Jon said at some point, probably realizing again that leading a conversation with me was pointless. I nodded, indifferent as always, and didn’t even look up when he left the tour bus.

Spencer was laying right next to me and I swiftly glanced at the person I had once called my best friend but who now was nothing but a stranger to me. I didn’t even know if he had a girlfriend or if he was like me, not wanting to be in a relationship. I couldn’t imagine either with Spencer.

It was minutes later when I heard a crashing sound interrupting the silence which made me realize that Brendon was still somewhere in the back area of the bus. There was a corner which was practically a tiny room where theoretically everyone could go but practically it was Brendon’s area. He only got out of there for shows, to go to the toilet or to sleep in one of the bunks that were all the same.

Brendon Urie had always been a riddle to me. When we had met years ago I had thought that Brent had been kidding when he had brought him to our practice. But we had desperately needed a lead guitarist – I myself was okay at the guitar but since I was the singer, that wouldn’t have worked anyways – so Jon and I had decided to give him a try.

And Brendon had turned out be a really good guitarist actually which was why we had let him join the band. And now, more than five years later, I still didn’t understand him at all. He was a Mormon – after all of this he still was – and I wondered how it was possible to combine religion with what we were doing.

When I entered Brendon’s area, he was just sitting there, casually reading some book and looking too neat considering that we were in a tour bus where parties were daily fare. The rest of us looked exhausted, annoyed and everyone stank. Brendon however smelled of clean laundry and better times which made me wonder how he actually managed to do that now that we were already more than one month on tour.

He didn’t look up when I was standing just a few feet next to him, maybe because he didn’t see me but probably just because he didn’t want to start a conversation. The latter was understandable and I quickly wondered why I had come here but then recalled that there had been a weird noise.

“Are you okay?” I asked and Brendon looked up, clear surprise visible on his face. “It could be worse.” He started and I realized that that wasn’t what I wanted to hear. “I kind of miss my family and home but other than that, I’m fine.” He smiled, so damn innocently that I almost wanted to do something to him after what he wouldn’t have remained innocent.

“That’s not what I meant.” I simply sighed. “I mean, are you okay physically?” He looked at me confused, flipping his book shut so I had his whole attention. “Yes, I’m perfectly fine.” That sounded a little bit too enthusiastic. “But why are you asking?”

“It’s just… I heard a crashing sound and thought that you maybe – I don’t know – stumbled upon something or that you threw your book at yourself.” I laughed, wanting to make either a bookworm or a Mormon joke or maybe both, but then I didn’t.”

“No, I’m perfectly fine.” Brendon repeated again and I wondered why he was always emphasizing the word ‘perfect’. Not just now but he usually did that which was pretty odd. Nothing in this world was perfect and people who constantly repeated that word usually knew too well that that was the case.

“Okay, well, I’m just going to back to the front area.” I claimed, actually wanting to leave but then Brendon said something else. “Why aren’t you out partying somewhere?”

I turned around again, looking straight into his dark brown eyes that – like him – were so damn normal and didn’t fit at all. And then I smirked. “I was fucking someone in the front area but then Jon interrupted us. Now I’m deciding on what I’m going to do next because that kid ran away.”

Something in Brendon’s eyes glowed up but his expression didn’t twitch. I liked using such strong language in front of Brendon because he never did that – because he was so damn nice. It was generally so much fun provoking other people: telling a homophobic person about sucking duck, talking to a religious person about Satan or such shit.

Now I wouldn’t say that Brendon was extremely conservative because he didn’t care about whom I fucked or about the fact that nobody else in this damn band was Mormon. He didn’t care about the parties and the drugs as long as we didn’t force them on him – which maybe we should, I thought – but I figured that it was this indifference that I usually felt myself, that made me freak out about him.

I wanted some kind of reaction. I wanted to tell him that what we – what I – was doing was against god’s plan, that I’d go to hell and that fucking men was sin. Well, I didn’t actually want that but maybe I did just a little bit.

“You could stay here, if you want. Maybe for once spend a quiet evening in the bus.” Brendon eventually suggested and I wanted why he was doing that. “I’m not saying that you have to read books like boring me but, you know, there are other things people can do.” It was funny that the guitarist was naming himself boring which I wondered he did just because we called him that or because he really thought he was.

I looked at Brendon for a couple of seconds, looked at the pile of books lying next to him and wondered how we had actually ended up like that. If I wouldn’t have been in the situation, I’d most likely have laughed. “And what would I do? What other things can one do on tour?”

There was no TV in our tour bus and the only other thing I could think of was fucking but that wouldn’t work now. Brendon certainly wasn’t an option and the guy from earlier had run away. The show had been over hours ago and I didn’t actually fancy hitting on someone either.

“You could…” Brendon started but didn’t finish the sentence because he probably couldn’t think of anything else either. All the activities he liked were much to the dismay of myself and everything I usually did, he didn’t do.

It was 3 am in the morning which I surprisingly realized and I wondered if Brendon still had trouble sleeping which he used to have. I recalled nights where we had walked around the area together because we had both been insomniac but that had been in another life, back when the drugs and alcohol hadn’t been my shield yet and the books hadn’t been Brendon’s.

Brendon looked at me as if he was thinking the same but neither of us said anything. Eventually I left his corner, hearing him grab his book again, knowing that he wouldn’t follow me, went back to the sofa where Spencer was still laying in the same position, grabbed a bottle of _Jack Daniel’s_ and started to numb the feelings that had just been awoken inside of me.


	2. If I had a heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone,   
> as y'all can clearly see Ryan is the biggest cliche fuckup though somehow I always seem to come back to such personalities. There's just something about that type of character that I love.  
> I really hope that you enjoy the story so far, if you do I'd really appreciate kudos or maybe even a comment. That helps a lot :)  
> Anyways, I hope y'all are staying healthy. I appreciate you loads!

A couple of weeks later we were driving to Vancouver. For once I knew that because it was the only Canadian city we were playing a show in. Everyone in the bus was asleep – band members as well as crew – so the only awake person were the one who drove and I. It was four am and I was suffering from insomnia as I usually did.

When we crossed the border, the officer didn’t even have a proper look in our bus and I realized that I maybe should’ve hidden the MDMA better but now it didn’t matter anyways. It was probably too late or too early for him to care enough to search our bus. 

The roadie who was driving and whose name I didn’t know because I constantly forget their names showed the officer our papers and he let us pass. I thought that all of this was way too easy.

Eventually I decided to get back to the bunks to at least try to sleep. Most people loved the feeling of getting into bed and finally being able to sleep but for me it was a daily fight I didn’t enjoy at all.

Just when I wanted to lay down, I realized that contrary to what I had thought, I wasn’t the only one awake. Brendon was calmly sitting in his corner, reading like it was the most normal thing to do in the middle of the night. Like usually, he didn’t look up and waited for me to start speaking. I wondered how many books he had already read on this tour and how many he had taken with him.

“Why can’t you sleep?” I finally asked, only afterwards realizing that this question was way too personal for our acquaintance. Even though we were in the same band for five years already, even though we had slept together in a tiny space with dozens of other people and even though, we had only grown further apart from each other.

There had been a time where we had actually gotten along with each other pretty well, where we had talked about maybe not too deep things but where we had at least talked, but at this point I rather considered Brendon a work colleague than an actual friend. And that was kind of sad, I figured.

“What time is it?” Brendon eventually asked back as if he didn’t know how late it was already. I told him that it was after four am and his expression didn’t twitch. Maybe one thing the Mormon and I had in common was that indifference about things. It was what I loved about myself but hated to see on him.

“I’ve lost track of time.” He only said as if it was completely normal to not have a look at a clock for several hours. “Other question: Why are you still awake?” His look pierced through me and I felt weirdly exposed. “I don’t know, I couldn’t sleep, I guess.” At least I was being honest. “Do you know that we’ve just crossed the Canadian border? Yeah, first time in another country. What about you?”

Brendon looked at me, puzzled, maybe even a little bit surprised, and I had to admit that I myself was surprised by my sudden urge to talk. It was probably because it was too late and because I hadn’t talked to anybody in hours and maybe also because of all the shit cursing through my veins.

“Same here.” The Mormon replied though it didn’t seem as if he was interested in continuing the conversation. “Are you high, Ryan?” He then added and I shook my head but then corrected “Yeah, I am.” Brendon nodded because that was probably what he had thought. “Why? Do you want something too?” I grinned but already knew what the answer would be.

“Damn, no.” He replied and I almost started laughing by how frightened he looked. “Why? Does your religion forbid that?” I asked further and when he turned pale, I knew that I had crossed a boundary I shouldn’t had crossed. “What do _you_ know about Mormons or religion in general, Ryan?” He laughed drily and it was everything but a pleasant sound.

Moments later, Brendon put down his book and sighed. “I know that you don’t care about that but it’s important for me, okay. And it is written that drinking alcohol isn’t allowed so I’m not doing it. I know some Mormons who’ve done it – I’m not saying that I approve of it, but I think there are worse things.”

I nodded, maybe even envying Brendon a little bit for how strictly he believed in something while I didn’t have about anything like that. “What about this? Going on tour and being on stage?” He looked puzzled but then shrugged. “Why should making music be forbidden? It’s wonderful, Ryan, it’s just the stuff that happens backstage that’s problematic.”

I nodded again and looked at the book he had been reading. Contrary to what I had thought, it wasn’t something about his religion but a book about the British Invasion which I found particularly interesting. “I think that I understand more of religion than you think, actually. I’ve grown up in a conservative protestant family. We have gone to church every Sunday, the whole program. And I wouldn’t even say that I hate all religions, it’s just that I can’t believe in God or Gods.”

Brendon inspected me dubiously, folding his hands like he was a priest, still wearing that straight expression that made me freak out. “You know, there are some gay people in the Mormon community. Everyone accepts them as long as they don’t live out their sexuality. Though that’s something straight people shouldn’t do either.”

I wondered why Brendon suddenly started talking about homosexuality. Sure, he knew that I was gay but my problems with religion had already started before I had realized that I was. “Then, are you gay yourself?” I asked because I had never seen him with either a woman or a man. I had never seen him with anyone.

Brendon laughed – he actually laughed as if I had made a joke but I hadn’t – and then replied: “Of course not. But I don’t care if other people are.” He looked at me and I knew that he meant me by ‘other people’.

I sighed again, wondering if I was already telling him too much about myself. It was just the tip of the iceberg but maybe still too much. Maybe I’d need to take more coke afterwards. “It’s not just because I’m gay that I don’t believe in God and don’t follow any religion. It’s so much more but… you wouldn’t understand.” I smiled sadly, figuring that that was definitely too much.

“You can talk to me, if you want.” Brendon offered as if we were the best friends and I was actually tempted. I was tempted to tell him things I had never told anyone but Spencer before and even when I had told Spencer, it had been years ago, before we had even started the band and before we had started taking shit that had made us so much more secretive yet so much more vulnerable. But then I didn’t, just shrugged and turned around.

Just when I wanted to leave to go to my bunk, Brendon said something else. “You don’t have to do this, you don’t have to take all that stuff. It doesn’t make things better.” He claimed like he was a parent or teacher who wanted to save someone who was already lost.

“Oh honey, you don’t know anything, don’t you? I don’t want to feel better, I’m not fooling myself that I will, I want to not feel anything at all and well,” Brendon looked almost sad when I smiled somber, “that works fucking good.”

***

Shortly before our show, I snorted a line of coke. The effect usually didn’t last for the entire show but that was okay. There were days where I felt like taking pills so I usually took MDMA and then there were does where I preferred sniffing and went back to classical coke.

Since MDMA had become illegal about a year ago, it had become a bit harder to get it but it wasn’t impossible – especially not for a person like me. I carefully placed the white powder in my pants pocket, carefully wiped away the last bit of the substance that was visible around my corner and then, for one quick moment looked at myself.

Even though I was barely twenty-three – in about two weeks would be my birthday but that didn’t mean anything to me anymore – I already knew that I’d be one of those people whose beauty would extinct pretty fast. So far, I was good-looking – I knew that and people knew that too – but soon I’d be a disgusting old man. If there was one thing my father had taught me, it was that alcohol and drugs destroyed one’s body to a point where one aged twice as fast.

“You good, Georgie?” Billie screamed from the other side of the locked up bathroom door. Oh, how I hated that damn name my parents had given me. As I had grown older, I had started to refuse to answer when someone would call me George until at some point everyone had started to call me Ryan. Most fans didn’t even know that the latter wasn’t my first name.

There was a silence, then I heard our manager sigh, and eventually a knock against the door. “I’m sorry, Ry, I thought it’d be funny. But seriously, are you coming or what?” It wasn’t a question and we both knew that. There were fans waiting for a show and we had to entertain them.

Finally I manage to compose myself and got out of the bathroom in which I had also done my makeup. I didn’t do the latter often anymore – I used to put on makeup for every concert but these days were long over – but if I did, I always did it myself and never let another person touch my face. For today, I had chosen a turquoise eyeshadow I had spread all around my eyes and an eyeliner which accentuated my eyes even more.

Billie was patently surprised when he saw me but didn’t comment on my look which was rounded off by a black blouse and a striped vest I was wearing on top but didn’t comment on it. When we got to the others, the only one to comment was Jon, claiming how fancy I would look.

I realized that Jon was probably the only person in the band who talked to everyone and actually got along with all, at least semi. The rest of us didn’t really talk, not anymore, and I thought that it was probably better like that. I didn’t want to imagine what it would be like if we’d all talk to each other, the four of us sitting on a table like civilized people – we certainly weren’t the latter.

The pre act – a band consisting of four lads who were a couple of years younger than we were called _Atomic Bunny_ – got off stage and I realized how much they reminded me of how we had been a few years ago. When we had started, we had all thought that everything would be good, that we had found our destiny and that we could do everything we wanted to.

We had been allured by that optimism one only had when one was younger, not having realized yet that the world was fucked up and that even if one made it, that didn’t necessarily mean that everything was good.

I saw their admiring expression, wondering when they would finally realize that I and all the other singers weren’t people to admire. One should rather admire to be the complete opposite of me. Still, I smiled at them, gave them assuring looks and wondered if I’d maybe fuck one of them later.

When we eventually got on stage, I already heard the crowd screaming before I actually saw them. It was an enormous stadium in which David Bowie, Bryan Adams and Michael Jackson had already played in. And now we were here. That made even me dignified.

Brendon took his position on my right side, Jon was on my left and Spencer whom I never really saw, behind me. The cheering didn’t stop for what felt like an eternity but when it finally did, Brendon started talking shit like how happy we were to be here and how magical this night was – bla bla bla.

We played our first song which was one off _Curiosity’s Death_ – our newest record that had come out the year before and then it was time for a cover of Fleetwood Mac’s _Think About Me_ which I hated particularly much because it was so ironically unfitting and reminded me of someone I didn’t want to be.

I hated it and the others knew that but the problem was that we had played it once, at the beginning of our tour, where the fans had loved it and then Billie had told us to do it again because it was so well received. Even I hadn’t been able to convince him otherwise.

I started singing words that weren’t mine, that I didn’t mean but that maybe Jon meant, maybe Brendon and Spencer too, but not me.

_All it took was a special look  
And I felt I knew you before  
I didn't mean to love you  
Didn't think it would work out  
But I knew we would be together  
And I couldn't wait for more  
But what can they say  
It's not against the law_

The crowd freaked out, singing the words with me and I wondered who had had the shitty idea to sing that song in the first place. It wasn’t that I hated _Fleetwood Mac._ Many people had recognized that our style was a bit similar to them and if I had to be honest, I saw their point. I didn’t have anything against the band and certainly saw the influence they had had on other artists or still did have – though I felt that their prime time had been over a while ago.

But the thing was that I hated singing certain types of songs and _Think About Me_ was definitely one of them. I didn’t want anyone to think about me, yes, sometimes I just wanted to curl up in my bunk and forget that millions of people knew my name and wanted to find out everything about me. Actually the latter happened quite often.

When the song was over, I turned around to grab a bottle of water, for one second locking eyes with Spencer. The drummer who used to be my best friend looked at me almost saturnine and I quickly turned around again. We continued with our set, singing songs from all our three albums but mainly from our last one, and I couldn’t forget his look. It had been a look someone would throw at a person one hated and I wondered if that was the case – if Spencer really hated me, if anyone else did.

I often thought that they only kept me in the band because I was the fucking singer and couldn’t be easily replaced. And even though all of us were participating in the writing process, I was the one who wrote the best lyrics – we all knew that. So it was either them leaving or me – both options weren’t discussable.

At some point I felt myself sobering up. The effect of the coke had long flagged and I had only had a shot before the show which hadn’t made me drunk. It wasn’t that I was overly drunk when we got on stage – not after I had once puked in front of thousands of people – but I liked to at least not feel sober. And now that I was feeling it, I felt frightened.

When we finally got to the backstage area, seeing Billie looking concerned, I immediately felt that something major had happened. I wasn’t that good at reading people but even I was able to understand when something was really wrong. And in that moment, it really was.

Eventually, the others saw our manager’s expression too and everything was dead quiet. We weren’t exchanging many words anyways but in that moment, it was a deadly silence that gave me the chills. Fucking feelings.

I thought about what possibly could’ve happened: an upcoming concert could’ve been cancelled or even worse, the rest of the tour, someone could’ve complained about something so we had to appear in court or something important could’ve been stolen. I only thought about things concerning the band but not for once thought about anything else.

Sometime later, it felt like an eternity, Billie sighed and started talking. “Your mother’s here, Brendon.” And that, I hadn’t expected at all. Brendon turned pale and I wondered why that was. Moments later Mrs. Urie was standing next to our manager, looking devastated. I had seen her a couple of times before, especially when our band had still been in the fledging stage. Mrs. Urie had always been a bit more open-minded so she had kind of accepted that her son was in a band and then she had tried to connect with all of us only to realize that that wouldn’t work. Brent had been the only one to really get along with her but that had been a long time ago.

Now she barely looked at anyone else but her son, shook her head, folded her hands into one another and then did the same all over again. “You have to come with me, Brendon.” Mrs. Urie eventually claimed, completely out of nowhere and when I looked at Brendon, I saw defiance in his look.

“Why should I come with you, mom? I’m on tour which you’re certainly aware of. Also, I’m twenty-two years old so you can’t dictate me anything anymore…” Brendon started but got interrupted by his mother’s desperate voice. “It’s your father, B. He has suffered a stroke and is now in a coma. He need our – your – support now. Please come with me, he really needs all the prayers in the world.”

In another situation I probably would’ve said that praying didn’t help for anything but even I had the decency to not say anything now that Mrs. Urie looked so desperate, her only hope being a god that didn’t exist.

Brendon didn’t say anything for minutes and nobody else did either, Then, finally, he started talking and it certainly wasn’t what I had expected. “I can’t, mom. The tour’s almost over, it’s just a couple more shows and then I’ll instantly be back, I promise. Also, I’m going to pray for dad here, I’m doing it every day.”

Brendon now looked as devastated as his mother and I wondered why he didn’t go with her. She had come all the way from Utah only to tell him that in person – my mother certainly wouldn’t have done that – and it would’ve been understandable if he would’ve left. Some of our roadies could’ve filled in for the remaining shows. Maybe Brendon was afraid to get replaced while he would be gone. But we certainly wouldn’t do that, wouldn’t we?

Mrs. Urie looked disappointed which I could really understand and then she just said: “Well, I’m going to fly back those six hours to St. George now.” turned around and left. Brendon didn’t hold her back but I was sure that he felt terrible. Even I felt terrible and that certainly meant something. Mrs. Urie hadn’t said that she was disappointed in her son, I had long ago figured that she wasn’t a person to do that, but she might as well had done it.

“It’s just a couple more shows. Two more weeks, right?” Brendon whispered, placing a smile on his face that looked almost painfully forced. Neither of reacted in any way, not talking but also not moving, and when Brendon left, we were still standing there like pillars of salt.

The guitarist went straight through the masses of fans which I recognized because I heard them scream but I doubted that he cared about that today. Usually, Brendon and Jon were the best at handling fans, at being nice and talking to them, while Spencer and I had always had our complexes when it came to that. But today the fans would be disappointed.

Moments later, Jon left too, probably to calm down the fans, which left Spencer, Billie and me. I still couldn’t quite comprehend what had just happened when the drummer said: “Maybe our little Mormon boy isn’t as altruistic as we have all thought.” It wasn’t a funny situation at all but still, I had to grin because that was exactly what I was thinking.

At the end of the day, humans were egoistic and would always act for their own benefit. In Brendon’s case, staying with the band was more beneficial so he had chosen _Inside Booze_ over his father. Though something deep inside of me told me that there was more about that.


	3. Poison & Wine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone,  
> sorry I didn't upload last Monday but I completely forget and then didn't want to upload on another weekday. From now on I'll definitely upload regularly!  
> I dare say this about my own work: I like this chapter on one side but then I don't like it on the other side. I like it because I think it gives everyone an insight in Ryan's fucked up mind and shows how complicated Ryan's and Brendon's relationship is. But I don't like how different I've portrayed Brendon here. I'm obviously some chapters ahead of the chapters I'm uploading and in the upcoming chapters he's going to be like a different person. Now that I look back at the first couple of chapters, I can't tell if I like that. You might call it character development but I don't know.  
> Anyways, I'm going to stop rambling and critizising myself here. I'd prefer you critzised me.  
> Have fun reading and see you next Monday!

I found _Atomic Bunny’s_ bassist standing in front of our tour bus, smoking a joint and I realized how desperately I needed something to either smoke, drink or snort myself. His name was either Henry, Barry or Harry – I couldn’t remember it anymore but it had to be one of them.

It was clear to both of us were this evening would lead us to. And maybe, yeah maybe after all that was a little bit less complicated than it was with women. Not that I couldn’t have had any woman I’d have wanted but I didn’t want one – simple as that.

When I approached him, I took a drag of the joint and threw it away when it was finished. Then I turned towards him and kissed him without a premonition. Henry/Barry/Harry hesitated first, maybe because he was afraid of who could see us while we were standing out in the open, but then he kissed me back, his tongue pushing into my mouth and his hand laying on my shoulder.

Even if someone would’ve seen us, I didn’t care about that. I had stopped caring long ago. It was the year 1986 and people certainly needed to get over the fact that guys were fucking guys and girls were fucking girls and everyone was doing what they wanted.

I opened the door of the tour bus behind the bassist, figuring that nobody would be there because Spencer was still in the backstage area with Billie, Jon was talking to the fans and Brendon was whatever. And I hated that right in this moment where I was about to get fucked, I was thinking about our fucking guitarist as if I was his worried mother.

When we entered the sofa area, I broke the kiss and looked at the bassist apologetically. “Could you wait here for just a second? I got to fetch something.” He nodded and I wondered if this guy was into drugs. Most people in the music industry were but there were always exceptions and Brendon was certainly the biggest one.

The bassist nodded and I left him alone on the sofa to get to my bunk where I kept my drugs. As a famous person like myself, it was so damn easy to get drugs. One only had to talk to certain people and bada bing, there they were. It was almost too easy for me.

My bunk was the one farthest away from the sofa, on the right side. I always took a bottom one because I didn’t like to sleep above someone. Brendon however usually preferred a top one and on this tour his were above the opposite bunk where Jon would sleep. It was crazy to know such intimate things about a person while other trivial things remained unknown.

I checked my unofficial hideout, feeling like I was a teenager fetching his secret porn magazines. But what I had hidden was so much worse than the latter. There was little MDMA left – I probably needed to get more in the next city – but an adequate amount of coke I decided to take.

Just when I wanted to do so, it was Brendon who interrupted me, Brendon who I had thought would be anywhere but here but there he was, standing next to me. “You don’t have to do this, Ryan.” He said like he had so many damn times before and I almost laughed because of his desperateness to make me quit drugs. The latter I didn’t even want to imagine.

I didn’t respond, wondering where he had come from and why he couldn’t just curl up in his corner and read a fucking book like he usually did. And then I placed some of the substance on my finger and snorted it right in front of him. Brendon’s expression didn’t twitch but then, he had already been discontented before.

Eventually, I cleaned up my nose with my fore finger and put away the coke again. “Oh, you want something too?” I asked gleefully, already knowing what the answer would be, but it was always so much fun to provoke the Mormon. This time he didn’t answer, didn’t even move.

And it was a weird moment because we were looking straight into each other’s eyes and I felt like we had never really done that before. Eventually, I turned around and felt like Brendon had just defeated me in a really weird way. “Someone’s waiting for you.” He finally claimed and I wondered if he had heard everything, if he sometimes heard when I was fucking a guy and what he thought about that.

“Yeah, right.” I replied. “And… your books are waiting for you too so you also have fun.” The coke started to kick in and I felt a lot better. Yes, I certainly would have fun tonight and I would show Brendon that. I’d make sure that he’d hear just how much fun I was really having.

***

I woke up hours later, disconnected and confused, having a really bad headache which barely happened anymore. Maybe I had actually taken a bit too much the night before. But I certainly hadn’t felt anything and that was what counted. Coke and whiskey had done a great job.

I felt that the bus was moving which meant that we were already on our way to the next city. Another day, another show or maybe we’d have a day off for a change. I didn’t even know anymore.

The next thing I realized was that all the bunks were empty or at least all I could see in my half-laying, half-sitting position. I went to the tiny bathroom which was so messy and disgusting that nobody would want to spend much time there but after brushing my teeth real quick, I found what I had searched for: headache pills. Their effect on me wasn’t as good as it was on most people. Actually, I needed to take a whole lot to actually feel better and I knew that that was all because of the other stuff I was taking.

Most people thought that people who took drugs didn’t know about the risks and what they were doing to one but I was completely aware of what I was doing to myself – and maybe I liked it.

Eventually, I escaped the bathroom, hearing indistinct chatter and music coming from the sofa corner. Of course it was Jon talking to a roadie – he probably knew every single name of them while I didn’t care to remember one – while Spencer and Brendon were sitting there quietly. Spencer probably because he was hungover as well and Brendon – I didn’t know about Brendon.

 _Baba O Riley_ was playing in the background and I felt severely relegated to another time, to another life, that I couldn’t tell if it had been better but it had certainly been easier.

“What time is it?” I eventually asked, still half asleep, which made Spencer and Brendon who hadn’t noticed me before look at me. Maybe they didn’t even know themselves. On tour, one last track of time, only knew how late it was when it was time to get ready for a show when someone told one but other than that, it could’ve been any time on any day. Hell, sometimes I even forgot which month it was.

Jon stopped talking to the roadie just in the moment where _Baba O Riley_ transitioned to _Bargain_ and I desperately looked at the coffee machine whose receptacle was currently empty. “It’s a Sunday, August 17th, 1986, just after noon. We’re currently on our way to Seattle but we’re having a day off today so you can sober up.” The bassist explained like we he was a flight attendant making such an announcement on a plane.

Jon probably knew that I tended to forget day and time but it was good to know that it was our day off. Unlike most people, I wouldn’t use it to go sightseeing but only to rot in my hotel room which I would fortunately get.

We didn’t sleep in hotel rooms often, usually only on days off, and it wasn’t that I hated the tour bus but I’d always prefer a hotel room I’d either have for me alone or just had to share with one other person.

“Is there some coffee left?” I eventually asked, almost begging for the liquid I couldn’t live without anymore. There were way too many substances I couldn’t live without at this point, I realized.

Spencer vehemently shook his head and then said something I identified as a negative answer. Well, that would certainly explain his mood. “Damn, there’s no coffee left? How can that be?” I exclaimed but nobody answered. There had been so much at the beginning of our tour that I had thought it’d last forever but our high consumption of the brew now proved me wrong.

“There’s tea left.” Brendon said after a while as if tea was just the same as coffee. “Tea.” I laughed. “Who the fuck wants tea?” The Mormon shrugged and minutes later I was desperate enough to actually fetch an Earl Grey. “How long until we arrive in Seattle?” I then asked the driver who quickly looked at me through the rear view mirror. It was a young man – probably even younger than me – who didn’t look like being a bus driver was the right job for him but what did I know? I didn’t care anyways.

“Like forty-five minutes?” He said and it rather sounded like a question. As if I knew the answer. I shrugged, turning around to what was our band and some roadies. And then I realized that someone was missing. “Where’s Billie?” I asked, for one second afraid that he had cancelled his position as our manager but then realizing that he wouldn’t do that just like that, not without telling me.

“He said that there was some stuff he needed to do but he’ll follow us tomorrow. Don’t worry, for our show he’ll be there.” Jon explained and I wondered if they felt that Billie and I had a different connection than Billie and each of them. They probably did, I guessed.

“What kind of stuff?” I asked, sipping on my tea like I was an old, boring lady. Jon shrugged. “Damn, Ryan, I have no idea. I only know that there are many things going on that he doesn’t tell us. So please stop acting like you know everything that’s going on in the band.” The bassist almost looked outraged and I wondered if there was something he wasn’t telling me and the rest of the band. The roadies, in the meantime, had gone to the bus’s back room – usually Brendon’s area – maybe to give us some time alone, maybe because they didn’t want to be involved in this shit.

I could’ve said something, could’ve dug deeper but instead I only nodded, taking another sip of my tea that actually wasn’t that bad – it wasn’t coffee, but it was drinkable – and Jon looked at me as if he had just seen a ghost. Maybe he had expected more resistance from my side, more questions and more digging but I wouldn’t give him that.

Maybe he was even after arguments and maybe we all were. Maybe we all liked provoking each other, liked to scream at and not get along with each other. Yeah, maybe that was what was feeding _Inside Booze._

We arrived at the hotel – a casual one which wasn’t overly fancy but also wasn’t trashy either, just as I liked it – and Jon checked us in because at some point that had become a thing he’d do when Billie wasn’t around. At some point he had become our unofficial manager.

The woman at the reception gave us two keys so I figured that each of us had to share the room with another person. The thing was, sleeping in the tour bus with Brendon, Jon and Spencer plus some roadies wasn’t a problem because there were so many people crowded together that it wasn’t weird anymore. But sleeping in a room with just one other person was something different.

I used to share a room with Spencer, back when we had still talked, but then, one day we had stopped doing that and had figured that it’d be weird to still share a room. Then I had started sharing one with Jon and that still did work well but the problem was that Spencer and Brendon didn’t want to share a room anymore either. So basically everyone always wanted Jon but only one other person could get him.

And today, I found out minutes later, I wouldn’t be fortunate enough to be the one. It was almost like in school where everybody wanted to hang out with that one popular person everyone had admired but only a small group of people actually managed to do so.

For the night, Spencer and Jon would share a room which meant that I’d had to go with Brendon. And I figured that the latter was certainly better than my former best friend. Also, it would just be for one night.

The last time I had shared a room just with the Mormon had been more than a year ago, back when we had been on tour for our second album _Dreams and Nightmares_ in ’84. It certainly felt like a different life.

I felt like over the years, our music had only gotten darker, sadder and deeper. We had started as optimistic teenage boys and now felt like we were already old men even though neither of us had reached the age twenty-four yet. And that showed, it certainly showed in the lyrics, in the melodies and in the overall picture.

Brendon and I approached the elevator because our room was located on the third floor while Jon’s and Spencer’s was probably somewhere else. We were alone and the silence between us was everything but pleasant. And even though it was in the middle of the day, I felt like it was late at night or early in the morning. It was a weird time.

I took my tiny travel bag in which I had only put the most necessary stuff while the rest was in our bus – I hadn’t taken much on tour anyways – and then we escaped the elevator to search our room and eventually found it at the end of the hallway.

It wasn’t anything special, just two beds a few feet apart from each other, a nightstand separating them, a table with two chairs in another corner and a mini bar which featured overly expensive alcohol one could buy. On the left side I could see the door to the bathroom but didn’t care enough to take a look at that.

Brendon looked like he was about so say something but I just threw first my bag on the floor and then myself on the bed which wasn’t as comfortable as it had looked like. I sighed. One could’ve thought that now we were a famous rock band, someone would’ve cared enough to actually get us more comfortable beds, but nobody did. I guessed that maybe even my bunk bed was more comfortable than the one I was lying on now.

“Any plans for today?” Brendon eventually asked me, maybe trying to conduct small talk which never worked with me. “Do I actually look like I’m having any plans?” I sighed. Well, actually I needed to get new MDMA, would maybe buy something from the mini bar and would generally just try to avoid to people but those things certainly weren’t what Brendon had had in mind.

The guitarist just shrugged and finally sat down on his bed, so careful as if he wasn’t allowed to mess it up. I maybe could’ve suggested something we could’ve done to brighten up the mood but I had never been a person to do that. Eventually, Brendon started unpacking his things, carefully placed two books on the nightstand that was between our beds and then grabbed his acoustic guitar he had taken with him too – for whatever reason.

I closed my eyes and already started to drift off into an unsteady sleep when I felt someone fiddling with my shoes. Immediately, I opened my eyes again only to see Brendon standing in front of me, taking them off like it was the most normal thing to do. And it was those complete opposite sides that confused me so much about him. Usually, Brendon Urie was a nice person. He was the complete opposite of me, always tried to help other people and – unlike me – actually cared about them. Usually Brendon was like that.

But the night before, he had rejected his own mother who had flown there thousands of miles only to tell him that his father was in a coma. And even I knew that that meant that it wasn’t sure how long he’d live. It was serious, I was pretty sure Brendon knew that too.

Still, he had stayed here, with a band who didn’t understand him, with people he barely talked to, only to keep reading those books that I wondered what they’d actually pull him off. Maybe Brendon Urie was more complex than I had thought and not just the usual Mormon boy. That was something I learned now, after I had known him for more than five years. But then, we had never talked much about private things. Neither of us had. Because Spencer and I had basically grown up together, I knew many things about his family but in the last years, I hadn’t properly talked to him about that shit and had no idea what was going on. Hell, I didn’t even know what was going on in my own family anymore. I didn’t care and they certainly didn’t either.

Instantly, I was fully awake and Brendon said something like that he had wanted to take my shoes off because it was pretty inconvenient to sleep with them and I had looked like I would fall asleep. And in that moment, it was simply too much. I didn’t care that we were in that hotel room somewhere in Seattle, I didn’t care about that but I hated the way the Mormon was looking at me.

And that was why I grabbed the tiny bag filled with the white substance I constantly craved which I had hidden in my bag, placed a line of coke on the nightstand, rolled up a piece of paper and started snoring it like one usually did that just like that. I had long ago crossed the point of actually caring about what I was doing.

Brendon cussed something – he actually said something like ‘Dammit.’ which he barely did – but then he grabbed his guitar again and started strumming, playing a couple of chords I didn’t recognize immediately but then finally figured what artist it was. I realized that it was one of Johnny Thunders’ newer songs but couldn’t recall the exact name. Maybe it was too easy.

When I finally felt the coke kicking in, I was in a much better mood. The weirdness of the situation was over and I wondered why Brendon was looking so depressed while there was no reason to. Or well, maybe there was. Maybe there were too many reasons.

For a few seconds the music stopped but then Brendon started playing another song which I immediately recognized as _Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want_ by _The Smiths._ Back when we had founded _Inside Booze,_ we, but especially I, were heavily impressed by British artists. _The Beatles,_ of course, but also _Pink Floyd, The Sound_ and even though I hated admitting that, _Fleetwood Mac._ I doubted that any band which now existed wasn’t influenced by all of them.

And then, one year after we had founded our own band, _The Smiths_ had emerged from the UK and I had been fortunate enough that I had heard of them pretty soon through someone, because when I had, I had immediately known that I wanted our music to be like theirs. Of course not completely like theirs but it was pretty obvious now that especially our latest album was influenced by them.

And now that I heard Brendon sing that song, it set me back to another time two years ago and I didn’t know if that was a good thing. It wasn’t a happy song, it certainly wasn’t, but I doubted that our music was happy either. It wasn’t like most artists’ that wrote dance pop which would make everyone dance and I thought that that was pretty great.

Generally, we had always been different than most artists because we had never aspired to get really famous. Sure, maybe we had thought about it but neither of us had actually thought that we’d make it and now that we had, I couldn’t stop wondering what was better: being famous and independent or being stuck and unknown.

“You know, I have written a new song, maybe for an upcoming album?” Brendon eventually said after the song had been over for quite a while and the silence had spread again. It came out of nowhere and I wondered when he had managed to actually write a new song. I never thought about doing that on tour. Instead, I would do it when I was alone the bedroom of my NYC apartment, when I was high on something and when I wanted to forget everything.

“Then, show me.” I demanded and he nodded. I expected a rather upbeat song because Brendon usually wrote the more positive songs while I wrote pretty depressing ones. I expected everything and when he said “It’s called _Sound Of Nothing,_ I guess.” I maybe expected nothing.

Brendon’s songs were good. Contrary to how he looked like, his songs were really good. Not as good as mine maybe but certainly good enough to not kick him out of the band. But what followed then wasn’t just good, it was _breathtaking,_ I had to admit.

The song was incredibly pessimistic, depressing even but that was the best kind of songs. My mood switched even further to a point where I actually needed to hold back tears. I didn’t cry, people like me didn’t cry ever.

Brendon’s voice was incredible, that I had to admit, and I had always liked it, but right in that moment it was on another level that I couldn’t quite comprehend. The melody fit so good with the lyrics that I wondered how much time Brendon had actually spent on the song overall.

When he finished, when the music was over and a sudden silence filled the room, I needed moments to regain my composure, tried not to show how I felt on the inside on the outside. Brendon looked at me expectantly but I couldn’t find the right words, couldn’t find words at all.

“It’s just a quick scratch.” He said as if it really was only that. It made me wonder if the Mormon was actually aware of his talent, if maybe I hadn’t been either this whole time. It hadn’t been just some random song and we both knew that. This song had the potential to become a worldwide hit, that was for sure, but I didn’t tell him that.


	4. Bullet proof... I wish I was

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone, I hope y'all are having a blessed... I wanted to say Sunday but it's actually Monday, I have no idea at the moment.  
> Anyways, I gotta be honest here, I really dislike this chapter. I've rewritten certain parts quite a few times but I'm still not satisfied and I think that I won't be able to make it any better but it needs to be here...  
> Today is July 6th and this day is so meaningful for me personally but also for the Panic/Ryden Bandom because it's the day Jon and Ryan have left the band back in 2009. Also, I would've seen mcr today and it makes me really sad that I have to wait another year until I can finally see them. Well, let's hope it'll be possible next year!  
> I appreciate y'all and I would appreciate Kudos if you like this story!  
> See you next Monday!

When I woke up, I couldn’t tell what day and even less what time it was. The shutters were closed which was why the room was completely dark but telling from Brendon’s steady breath next to me, I figured that it was probably too late or too early to be awake.

Eventually, I went to the bathroom, somehow managing to not make any noise and actuated the light switch which blended me like when one looked directly into the sun. There was a clock there, for some weird reason there was and when my eyes had recovered, I saw that it was 5:40, I figured in the morning. We would play another show in the evening, here in Seattle, a city I blurrily remembered from when we had been here years ago.

I sighed and undressed myself to take a quick shower. When one was famous, it was unfortunately normal that people talked about one. I didn’t give a fuck but the one thing I usually heard the most about me was that they were saying that I was too thing. And I figured that that was probably true. The drugs messed up one’s body and one’s feeling of hunger but they also made me feel free for a couple of minutes or even hours after I took them.

Eventually, I shook my head, trying to stop thinking about things I couldn’t change anyways. It was really refreshing to use a decent shower for a change. There was one in our tour bus but one usually only used it when it was completely indispensable. Other than that, we usually took the showers most venues we played at had offered. But a shower in a hotel was something else. It was probably the first time I felt really fresh since we had left for tour.

When I exited the bathroom, only wearing my boxers because I had figured that Brendon was still asleep, I realized that he wasn’t anymore. His eyes went wide as he saw me only in my underwear as if that was something he had never seen before. Then I realized that I had actually never seen him only wearing his boxers. It barely even happened that he was wearing shorts. Maybe that was another thing his religion forbid.

“What time is it, Ry?” He eventually asked, his deep morning voice distinct because those had been the first words he had said. After that, he quickly wiped his eyes to get rid of the sleepiness. I went back to the bathroom to check the time. “It’s 6:15.” I then said, wondering how I had spent like thirty minutes in the bathroom.

“Isn’t it weird that the clock is located in the bathroom?” Brendon only said, no comment about why I was awake already. I shrugged. “I guess.” And then it got weird again because I was standing there just wearing my boxers, because Brendon was still lying in bed, just having woken up, and because we were both completely exposed and felt vulnerable – in my opinion the worst feeling to ever feel.

I went to my travel bag and fetched a fresh shirt I had packed the day before. Then I also donned my pants and pulled the shutters up to reveal. The sun was just rising and it looked incredibly beautiful. I had always preferred sunrise over sunset, unlike many others and this here was such a beautiful phenomenon that I could actually write songs about it.

Brendon got up from his bed too – even while he was sleeping he was wearing long trousers but at least a t-shirt – and stood next to me while the sky was covered in several colors ranging from orange to pink to purple to blue. “Why did you do it?” I then asked, wondered why I was actually starting a conversation while I actually could’ve remained quiet. “Why did – why do you stay here?”

Brendon needed a couple of seconds to understand that I was talking about his father and his mother who had actually come to Vancouver. It wasn’t an accusation because I certainly wouldn’t have travelled home to see my father, not ever. Now he was dead anyways.

“I don’t know.” The guitarist sighed. “It’s just a couple more shows, right?” He repeated again and I wondered why he was telling himself and everyone else this lie. But then, I was the master of lying to everyone, including myself.

“It’s not just a couple more shows, Brendon. It’s two weeks and like ten more left, that certainly not a couple.” I claimed, not even knowing exactly how many shows were left. “It’s not ten but nine left. Seattle tonight, Portland the night after, two days later Boise, then Sacramento, San Francisco…” Brendon started recalling but I interrupted him.

“Okay, stop, you don’t have to name every single city we still have to play a show in. But you see what my point is, right? There’s more than just a couple left but you’re obviously still staying with the band and I don’t get why.”

Brendon sighed, his eyes still fixed on the ongoing sunrise though it was almost completed. “Other question: Why didn’t you go to your father’s funeral a couple of years ago? He has died, Ryan, and you haven’t even managed to go to his funeral. Instead you’ve gotten high as usual and your mother has been alone. So, if you can tell me that, I’ll maybe tell you why I’ve chosen to continue touring.”

He looked at me expectantly but neither of us expected that I would say something which I didn’t actually. And then Brendon just turned around to go to the bathroom himself. Moments later I heard the sound of water pattering against the wall and on the floor and I imagined Brendon standing in the shower, not wearing anything, imagined him naked, wondered how his cock looked like and if he had ever touched it and thought about someone while doing that.

But then I restrained myself from thinking about that and looked out of the window to see the city slowly wake up. Though big cities never really slept. I had already been to and lived in so many that I knew that. There were always people staggering through the streets after a night of partying, those who had insomnia and needed something to do or those who needed to start working at an inhuman time.

The shower was being turned off and I couldn’t help but feel like both Brendon and I had many things we had never told anyone – like we were both severely broken people but had completely different ways to cope with that. His was certainly the healthier one.

***

That evening we played the weirdest show we had played in a long time – apparently everything was weird at the moment. I was so used to the crowd completely freaking out that it was quite a surprise when they weren’t as aggressive. It wasn’t like they were standing still but they weren’t as responsive as they usually were and I wondered why that was.

Even later, when we were signing stuff, they were almost polite and that certainly never happened. Fans were never polite, they were usually dragging themselves against one, wanting their breasts signed and other crazy stuff but they were never polite. But that night they were and I almost enjoyed it.

I knew that most people thought that Brendon’s obedient school boy style was just for show and that was what most girls loved. Many people knew that he was still a Mormon but nobody wanted to believe that a rock star was actually dressing like that. If they knew that it really was his style, most fans would probably have run away, I figured.

I knew that there was something about Brendon that one barely saw on other guitarists. And we had met many of the latter: Brian May, Jimmy Page, Syd Barrett and so many more. They were all incredible, I certainly recognized that but something about Brendon was different and I didn’t know if it was his innocent, humble looks, his charisma that never showed what was really going on inside of him or maybe the way he held his guitar like it was a body part of him.

Just when we wanted to enter our tour bus which would drive us to the next city overnight, a couple of people appeared out of nowhere and I needed a few seconds to identify them as paparazzi. It was _Inside Booze,_ Billie, Mike and Tre Cool – the latter two were part of the crew and because they had been there since our very first tour, I actually remembered their names – against a group of five people who wanted to milk every single secret out of us.

I hated situations like that, I really did. The thing was, I also hated usual interviews but in those, you at least had an idea of what would happen. Beforehand the band and the interviewer would talk about what they were going to talk about and only sometimes they would ask questions that were really unexpected. But in situations like this, anything could happen.

“Would you mind quickly answering a couple of questions?” The woman who couldn’t be much older than I was, asked and I wondered what made one choose such a boring job, why people were so interested in celebrities’ personal lives. Nobody approached them on the streets and asked questions about theirs.

“Yes, we would mind. Now could you please go away and leave the band alone?” Billie started, trying to handle the situation but saying stuff like that never worked. The woman smiled malicious and we turned around to actually go inside the bus and escape this city that had been so weird to us.

Paparazzi maybe didn’t use violence, at least not usually, but they had other weapons and sometimes they defeated one. I knew that too well. And that was why I wanted to get away immediately.

“Mr. Urie.” The woman eventually started even though Billie had told her not to. “There’s something we’re all dying to know: Is it true that your father is a drug addict?” She looked at Brendon with a completely straight face and he looked back with the same one. It was the poker face every celebrity or a person who worked with the latter had perfected. Then, the guitarist laughed – it was the most insincere laugh I had ever heard – and shrugged it off by saying “No, of course not. Who’s telling such horrible things?”

And I would’ve expected any question. There had been those who had implied an affair between either Brendon and me or Brendon and Spencer – for some reason it was always Brendon who was being harassed – or those about potential girlfriends, secret wives or parents. The questions were always annoying but never ever had I heard a more ridiculous thing. If that were true, Jon, Spencer and I surely would’ve gotten to know it was.

Billie screamed at the woman until she and her crew finally turned around though I couldn’t unsee the triumphal look on her face. When everyone else had already entered the bus, I was still standing outside, wondering if the woman had invented the question or if someone else was spreading such a ridiculous story. Because it was ridiculous, wasn’t it? It certainly wasn’t true.

I felt like every single star on the clear sky was laughing at me as I went inside and I had to realize again that after all I didn’t know anything about Brendon Boyd Urie, even less about his family. I had to realize that I wasn’t the only secretive, broken person in this band. Maybe that was how being famous turned people. Maybe that was inevitable. And maybe a tiny part of me wanted to know more about that guy I had known for so many years.


	5. Visions of Gideon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone!  
> I was writing a future chapter and figured that I could upload this one since it's already Monday here. It's veritably crazy how fast time flies by.  
> I've just reread this chapter and I gotta admit while I haven't really liked it during writing it, I really like it now because it's quite different and reveals so much to the reader. I hope you enjoy it as well and if you do so, feel free to leave kudos or maybe a comment!  
> I'm in that super emotional state right now, listening to 'Holocene', thinking about Ryden and feeling all the feels.  
> Well, I'm going to leave y'all to it. See you next Monday!

It was shortly before our first LA show a couple of days later when Jon started talking about what I personally hated so much – my birthday. There were certain people who liked celebrating birthdays, who liked spending time with their friends, who liked having fun. Jon was certainly one of them but I wasn’t.

Even as a child, I hadn’t liked birthday parties. Everyone my mother had thrown me had been pure torture. A couple of my so called friends had appeared – people I hadn’t ever seen in my teen years or early adult life but who probably wanted to spend time with me now that I was famous – but usually after we had eaten the cake that most people had come for, there wasn’t anything we had in common.

I wouldn’t say that I was special because nobody in this damn world was special, but I had always been different than other kids. I didn’t mean my sexuality here because that was something I had only discovered much later, no, what I meant was that most children loved playgrounds, Legos and Barbies, but I had never really been interested in that.

I had gotten my first guitar when I had been six years old – probably the only good present my father had ever given to me – but I couldn’t say if that was when my love for music had been awoken or if that had been before. So maybe my father had helped with that, maybe he hadn’t.

The thing was, I had never been a bad guitar player, I had been in bands before – the first one when I had been twelve years old – and I wasn’t bad, but I had always felt that the guitar wasn’t my real passion. It was only when Spencer got the idea that we could found a band and when we had needed a singer, that we all figured that I could do it. And I certainly was better at that.

I wasn’t saying that I was the best singer of all time. There were many better ones – Freddie Mercury, Elvis Presley, Stevie Wonder, Robert Plant, just to name a few – but there were certainly even more better guitar players. That was why I had become the singer instead of the lead guitarist.

Now, Jon was looking at me maliciously and I figured that he probably had a party planned for me in Las Vegas which show would be when my birthday would be – what an irony, the day I hated so much would take place in the city I hated so much.

I was doing my makeup – an unspectacular look with black eyeliner and blue eyeshadow because my hand wasn’t as steady as a couple of years ago anymore – that was something I tended to do more because it was a welcome distraction before a show, Jon was doing his hair, Spencer was standing there naked from the waist on, still deciding which shirt he would wear and Brendon was somewhere, I didn’t know.

Since Brendon’s mother had come to Vancouver, trying to drag her son home, but especially since the paparazzi had thrown hollow accusations at him after the Seattle, we barely got to see Brendon. He usually was nowhere to be found – not even in his usual corner in the bus which was alarmingly weird – and I wondered what I was doing. After all, he was an adult just like me, but I was just wondering.

It was still weird for me to think that we were all adults at this point. I was so used to sneaking into clubs with fake IDs and not being able to buy alcohol, that I often forgot that I’d turn twenty-three soon. Even Spencer whom I still had in mind as a little boy would turn twenty-two soon and I thought that it was pretty weird that I had known little Spencer so well but had no idea who adult Spencer was.

It was only minutes before we would go on stage – _Atomic Bunny_ had already gotten off stage and the bassist whose name I didn’t mind to remember was looking at me as if he wanted to fuck me again, maybe he didn’t understand that I only did that once – that Brendon appeared, casually walking through the door as if we weren’t about to play a sold out show in front of about 56,000 people in the Dodger stadium.

He was smiling as if he had just gotten the most positive news ever, but it looked fake to me. Then he sat down on the sofa in the backstage area, wearing a black shirt and black trousers which almost made him look like the rest of us, not like a Mormon, and I wondered if he was high. He certainly seemed so.

The thing was, I usually knew when another person had taken something. I myself was able to hide it so well at this point that nobody could really tell if I was sober or not – I had taken Oxycodone earlier but barely even felt the effect anymore – but Brendon was acting so obvious, almost too obvious.

I wondered why he hadn’t come to me if he had wanted to take something. Maybe he didn’t actually want to, I knew that it was against his religion but I certainly didn’t care about that. He could’ve come to me and we could’ve gotten high together, but maybe I was just making stuff up here.

“What’s up, guys?” The Mormon then said as if we were causally chatting, as if we were allowed to do that. Billie was looking at him concerned and I realized that everyone else was too though I didn’t see why they should be concerned. Even if Brendon had taken something, that shouldn’t be a big deal, everybody did that. I was just annoyed that he hadn’t come to me because I was certified the best person to hang out with while on drugs.

“What’s up is that you guys are supposed to play a show now. You can’t fuck this up.” Billie said, half angry, half concerned maybe, and I realized that we couldn’t, couldn’t we? Brendon’s pupils were widened and I was almost certain that he had taken something – maybe just weed, maybe harder stuff.

“Can’t I sleep for a bit? I’m sooo tired.” He claimed, overly accentuating the word ‘so’. It was almost ridiculous how he was acting. I had gone on stage being drunk, being high, having taken coke, Molly and several kinds of prescription drugs but I had never acted like that. I had always done my job.

But then I recalled that it was probably Brendon’s first time that he had taken something harder than weed and that was maybe something different. I couldn’t even recall when my first time had been.

“C’mon, B. You’re taking this- “I gave him his guitar “-and then you’ll play along with us. You’re a natural at playing the guitar so you’ll certainly manage that.” The Mormon looked at me for a second, his eyes wide open and his mouth pressed together to a thin line, until it was me who had to look away.

“Let’s go.” I then said towards everyone, apparently being the most optimistic one in the band which was weird considering that I hated all of this, hated my band members, hated the shows, hated the fans, even hated some of the songs. “C’mon, Brendon.” I repeated and that was when he finally got up, grabbed his guitar and we went on stage.

On our way there, with the cheering of the fans in front of me and Billie’s eyes in my back, I couldn’t stop wondering why Brendon had crossed the line only now. Was it because of his mother who had come all the way to Vancouver? Was it because of his father who was in a coma? Was it maybe because of that bitch who had asked completely mad questions? Or was it something completely else I didn’t know about?

Whatever it was, it certainly had to be something really bad because if even Brendon Urie had started taking drugs, then the world couldn’t be saved anymore. We were all doomed.

***

We barely changed our set list on tour. But we always changed one song, added another or played something completely new. This time, as always we started with the usual song off our newest album and then switched to _Fleetwood Mac’s Think About Me_ which everybody expected at this point.

Brendon seemed to be doing just fine and I wondered if he had been acting a little bit. Maybe he was as good in doing that as I was. Maybe we all were. The crowd was crazy that evening and quite a few people tried to get on stage, tried to touch one of us or anything we had touched. The art was to ignore that and let the security do their job.

Towards the end of our set, Brendon started talking which was weird because Jon usually was the one who talked most of the time, sometimes I myself, but Brendon barely said anything – that was why there was this mysterious aura surrounding him, at least fans thought that.

“Hello, LA. You’re beautiful.” He smiled and for one second I was afraid that he would say something he wasn’t allowed to say. But then I remembered that I didn’t experience anxiety ever and got back to not caring. It’d all be just fine.

“A couple of days ago I’ve been in a hotel room with Mr. Ryan Ross here-“he pointed at me as if people didn’t know who I was and the crowd laughed. “-and we’ve been fooling around a little bit, playing songs and stuff. I had written a new song earlier and I had wanted Ryan to hear it. I think he found it pretty good." The crowd laughed again and well, maybe I was just a little bit frightened now. “Nobody else had heard it yet, neither Jon, nor Spencer, nor any other crowd, but I wanted you guys to hear it first because LA is such a special place.” LA was a shithole, every city on the west coast was.

I wondered why Brendon was doing that. Was it because he was high? Because he wanted more attention? Because he hated me so much? It had to be the latter. Well, I hated him too. I certainly did.

“I want you guys to be completely quiet now. Nobody talks, nobody moves.” Nobody did, everybody was captured by what Brendon was doing, probably because the mysterious Mormon was talking for a change. He went to the backstage area and came back with an acoustic guitar a few minutes later. While he had been gone, nobody had said a word.

“Ok, well, here is _Sound Of Nothing._ I hope you’ll like it. It’s quite different.” Brendon smiled again and I didn’t know what to feel. The song he had written wasn’t just different, it was unlike everything I had heard before. It was a masterpiece and I was pretty sure that the crowd as well as Jon and Spencer would feel that too.

Brendon started playing the first couple chords and it was so different now that he was playing the song in front of thousands of people in an arena. Back when we had been in the hotel room, it had just been the two of us and now I weirdly felt like someone was stepping in our privacy.

I wanted to burst in bubbles, I wanted to fly away, I wanted to take fucking drugs, I wanted to do everything that would not make me feel this song like I was feeling it now, in front of ten thousands of people who would see me getting emotional.

I certainly hated Brendon for that. I never got emotional, never. Sure, I got angry from time to time, but people like me didn’t get _sad_ – there were drugs and alcohol to prevent that – and that was exactly what this song made me. This song made me sad, made me want to cry, made me want to curl up in a corner and I hated that.

I hated Brendon for writing such shit, for playing it in front of so many people, for not having told any of us, but mostly I hated him for how he managed to capture the crowd, how everyone was hanging on his every word and how the fans were looking at him as if he was a God.

As I looked at them more exactly, I saw many people cry, tears rolling down their faces with them barely noticing it, and that was when it all got too much. Our band didn’t write songs for people to cry. We weren’t some fucking soft rock band writing emotional songs about heartbreak or – like Brendon had done – how fucking heartbreaking life in general was. That wasn’t us.

I looked at Jon, at Spencer, at everybody else on stage and backstage and then ran away. I exited the stage and went through a door where nobody had stood in front of and Brendon probably hadn’t even noticed that.

Feeling like I was about to get a panic attack, I searched for a way out but it took way too long until I finally found one because that stadium was just massive. Eventually, I got out through a back entrance which was only open one way, one couldn’t get back inside there.

I collapsed on the ground next to the door, seeing a sky full of stars which I maybe just imagined in my mania. And then I just remained there, it being completely silent around me which was uncommon in such a big city as LA. There was something about that song – maybe it was the slow melody, the fact that it was an acoustic version or Brendon’s desperate vocals, maybe it was everything together – that made me incredibly sad, almost made me cry and that was something I never did.

I hadn’t cried in front of anyone since I had been eight years old, back when my dog had died and my mother had screamed at me. I hadn’t cried since then and I wouldn’t ever again.

It could’ve been minutes or even hours that I was just sitting there, but at some point I decided to get back to wherever Brendon hopefully wouldn’t be. I couldn’t stand him. Maybe after all, I was the one who needed to leave the band because they certainly wouldn’t need me anymore. Somebody had to.

I walked around the stadium until I realized that fans already started to come out of there. When I noticed that, I turned around, coalescing with the dark again, still wondering if there were stars on the sky or if I was just imagining them. I was so pumped with drugs that it could’ve been whatever.

As I went back to the fenced off area around the stadium, I wondered how I was supposed to ever play a show in front of people again. After what had happened today, I felt exposed. I felt like everyone had seen a weak side of me and that was something I didn’t show the people closest to me, even less thousands of fans.

I wanted to fetch a cigarette out of my pocket but then sadly realized that I didn’t carry a pack with me. I had nothing on me but my clothes. And because it was so dark, I didn’t realize that somebody else was next to me until the person started talking. “Here you are.” Of course it was Brendon. Of course it was the person I wanted to see least of every person on this damn planet. How else would life be working?

Now I was able to see his silhouette because the moon was a bit luminiferous though I wouldn’t have recognized him by his looks, only recognized his voice. Of course I recognized his voice. I’d never be able to forget it because it was tattooed on my skin and there was nothing I hated more than that.

“I hate you.” I eventually said, realizing that that was such a stupid, immature thing to say but who cared about acting rational? “I’m going to quit the band. Tomorrow. You guys will see what you have from that.”

Brendon laughed. The bastard actually laughed and I got so angry that I almost punched the air. “No, you won’t.” He was right, maybe I wouldn’t, maybe there were certain things still keeping me here, but who actually knew?

“Don’t you dare playing that song again. I honestly hate it.” I continued being pessimistic because, well, that was who I was. Positivity was overrated, life sucked. “I thought you liked it.” Brendon replied. I couldn’t see his expression but I could had bet that he looked insecure and sad. And that was exactly what I aimed for.

“I fucking _hate_ it. It doesn’t sound like our band at all.” I continued harassing and Brendon sighed. “I think it’s a good idea to change our sound from time to time. We get older, we change, and I think our music should too.” He claimed and generally he wasn’t wrong with that but I certainly didn’t want to sound our band like that.

“Oh, if you want to change our sound, than make us sound like fucking _AC/DC_ or _Metallica._ But don’t make us sound like fucking _Tears For Fears._ ” I knew that we would never be a Hard Rock-Band – I wasn’t able to make my voice sound like that and that wasn’t who we were – but we weren’t a fucking pop band either and I felt like that was what Brendon was going for.

I didn’t tell him that I actually loved that song, that it touched something inside of me that I kept hidden and that exactly that was the problem. I never ever wanted anyone to see me like that. And that was why we couldn’t continue making such music.

It was weird, I thought, that we were standing there in the dark, alone and not being able to see the other’s expression which was certainly for the better. It was weird that I barely realized how Brendon eventually went away and left me alone. And it was the weirdest that I followed him when I finally noticed that.

A lamp went on when we approached a door – it was one of those new motion detectors that scared the shit out of me every time – and I was able to see Brendon’s expression that showed me way too much, yet nothing at all. He looked at the place where I had subconsciously grabbed his arm and only now did I notice that my skin was touching his at some point.

And in that moment, he looked so unlike the Mormon he usually looked like. He looked like a fucking rock star and I found that weird considering that we knew each other for more than five years already. Everything about this situation was fucking weird.

“Why did you do it?” I then asked, figuring that all of this was just because Brendon had taken some shit and because everybody reacted different the first time. Brendon was certainly one of the melancholic kind. “Why did you take shit and what did you take exactly? Please tell me so I know if I can expect you to puke at me later.” I laughed dryly and Brendon shook his head.

“C’mon, I don’t care about the fact that you’ve taken something. I mean look at me.” I laughed again. “I also don’t care that you’re Mormon and that it’s against what you believe in and I certainly won’t tell anyone. I honestly just want to help you because whatever you’ve taken can be dangerous, especially for the first time.”

Brendon sighed, long and deep, it almost sounded like he was moaning – that was a thought I immediately brushed away – and then he finally told me. “It was LSD.” He said tiredly, nothing else, not explaining why he had taken it but I figured I couldn’t expect that from him.

“Why haven’t you come to me? Do you know how much µg it has been? And when have you taken it exactly?” I bombarded him with question which made Brendon look at me confused. “Hell, I don’t know. I think it has been like 100µg.” “Ok, ok, that’s a usual dose. That’s okay. But you know that the effects can last for up to 12 or 14 hours? You got to be careful.”

Brendon’s expression was puzzled. “Why are you telling me all this? I mean why should I have come to you? You don’t care about me anyways, nobody here does so it doesn’t matter where I’m getting my drugs from.” The last statement gave me the chills – certainly not in a good way. The fact that Brendon had been talking about ‘his drugs’ made me freak out.

“I do care about you, okay? I do fucking care about you and that’s why I don’t want you to wake up in the middle of nowhere, not even knowing your own name. I don’t want you to experience that anxiety when you’ve no idea what has happened the night before. There’s still hope for you, B, but there isn’t any hope for me anymore.

“You know what? Maybe I like the boring Mormon boy whose life was supposed to be perfect more. I never thought that I’d say that but maybe I like you better when it feels like you’re the only innocent person in our band. I don’t even know anymore.” I sighed, hoping that Brendon wouldn’t remember what we were talking about now because I had already said too much.

“You know what, Ryan? Fuck you. Fuck yourself and your fucking drugs, and also fuck Barry because you’ve already had so much fun doing that.” It was only when Brendon went away, leaving me alone with my thoughts that didn’t seem to stop, that I realized that Barry was the bassist of _Atomic Bunny_. And no, I certainly didn’t want to fuck him.


	6. Stranger Things Have Happened

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm constantly living in several parallel universes in which Ryden is real. What even is real life anymore?

“It’s your birthday, Ryan.” Spencer said exactly at midnight as we were on our way to Las Vegas – my hometown in which I ironically didn’t live anymore but the others did. “Happy birthday, I guess.” He added and I nodded. Spencer knew that I hated birthdays. That was something you didn’t just forget about a person, even when you’re drifting away from each other. Now, Spencer was mentally located in Australia and I was in Russia.

Our tour bus had constantly been shrinking after every show we had played. Now, it was way too small for my comfort and I was beyond happy that it’d be our last show later that day. But what a show it would be.

Jon was already sleeping which was weirdly early for him and Brendon was crawled up in his area, at least that was what I figured. It was a really unpleasant situation between us. So unpleasant that I could certainly say that I preferred a time where we had barely talked to each other, where he hadn’t taken drugs which I didn’t know if it had been just one time or if he was still doing it, where I hadn’t cared about him as I now did and that was something I definitely wanted to undo.

It was a long ride from Albuquerque to Las Vegas, so long that I actually wondered why we hadn’t been to Las Vegas before and then finished the tour in Albuquerque. But I knew that everyone had wanted to finish in the city even most of the crew were living in and that was why we were now driving like 600 miles through the night.

It didn’t really matter to me because I wasn’t the one driving. Neither of the band had to do anything really because we had the crew that was doing everything for us. I blurrily remembered a time in which we had travelled through the country in a minivan, all crowded together like rats and where we had had to do everything on our own. It now seemed to have been another life.

I couldn’t wait for the tour to be over but eventually there would be another one and another one and another one – I didn’t know how long I’d be able to do that anymore. We weren’t officially working on a fourth album yet but I knew that everyone had already written a couple of songs because that was what musicians did. We wrote songs when we were happy, when we were sad, when we were at home, when we were on tour – it didn’t matter.

Three albums in four years wasn’t that bad. Sure, _the Beatles_ had released thirteen albums in about seven years but the music industry didn’t work like that anymore. Though I had to admit that the thought of writing another album with Jon, Spencer and especially Brendon frightened me. I was pretty sure that they’d want the Mormon’s new song on the new record and I wanted everything else but that.

“Do you want something too?” Spencer eventually said, making me escape my thoughts that were oh so annoying. I looked at him and then at the whisky bottle he was holding in his hand. There was always enough alcohol in this damn bus, somebody always took care of that. But somehow they didn’t manage to ensure a steady supply with coffee.

And I thought, what did I have to lose? I was barely drunk yet and why shouldn’t it be another night where I should get wasted? All those thoughts were way too annoying anyways. I nodded and the guy I used to call my best friend poured me in a drink. It was weird that we were alone at that time. Usually roadies were wandering around the bus and Billie would be found on a sofa, but today it was just me and Spencer.

I took the glass and chugged everything down like it was water. Well, it was for me. “To _Inside Booze._ ” Spencer said when he poured both of us another drink in and when we were clicking glasses like we were those fancy people. Most people changed when they got famous and when they were rich but nobody in this damn band had changed really. We had only gotten more secretive but other than that, nobody had gotten overly arrogant, at least not more than we had been before.

I wondered what exactly Spencer was celebrating about our band. Just objectively looked at, we had reached everything a band could want to reach. We had three popular records, an enormous fan base and were touring all over the world. But I had never felt hollower ever before.

We reached Las Vegas in the early morning hours and I was the only one who was still awake, sitting on the sofa like it was in the middle of the day. I saw the strip from afar and got catapulted back into another life. Since I had moved away a couple of years ago, I had only been here twice, when we had been on tour. And every time I wondered why I hadn’t grown up in a dullsville I’d never have to see again.

Eventually I decided to try to catch a couple of hours of sleep. Molly would help me to stay awake later but a bit couldn’t harm. I was pumped with whisky, it was cursing through my blood and I felt like shit. But I didn’t even care about that anymore because when I laid down, I immediately fell asleep, dreaming about things I should forbid my mind to dream about.

***

I woke up because of loud noises, people talking and items of luggage being heaved. Needing a couple of seconds to identify where I was and what was going on, I eventually realized that everyone around me was leaving the bus, the bunks clean as if nobody had ever slept in there, and I wondered what time it was.

Brendon, who was still packing his things, realized that I was awake too, but his expression remained indifferent. “To be honest, we thought about just leaving you here.” He claimed as if that was a normal way to start a conversation. No ‘Good morning.” or something, but when had we ever done that?

“You can. Just leave.” I exclaimed, rubbing my eyes to get rid of the sleepiness. “How late is it?” I added and Brendon told me that it was 10:30am which meant that I had barely slept for four hours. “Are you okay, Ry?” He then asked and I found it weirdly intimate that he was calling me by my short nickname which barely anyone did. My friends used to call me that but at this point I didn’t really have friends anymore.

“Yeah sure, I’m just tired.” I explained which was at least half of the truth. I realized that I was still wearing yesterday’s clothes that were now rumpled and looked like I hadn’t changed them in weeks which, maybe I hadn’t really.

“I haven’t forgotten about your birthday, by the way, I just haven’t mentioned it because I know that you don’t like that.” Brendon than said casually, looking at something next to me. And I had to admit that he looked good that day. Not that he didn't look good on other days but today his hair was so messed up in a way that it couldn’t be fixed, no matter what. He was wearing grey shorts which I had barely seen him wear before – it was so damn hot in Las Vegas though, I could already feel that even though it was barely 11 am – and a black shirt that was tight but not too tight. For a moment I thought that in another life, I maybe would’ve considered fucking Brendon Urie.

“Why are you bringing it up now? I’ve had a peaceful morning so far.” I claimed and Brendon laughed. Maybe it was a real one this time. “You only woke up like fifteen minutes ago.” The guitarist replied and I shrugged. “Yeah, but it actually has been peaceful until now.” Maybe Brendon wondered why I hated birthdays so much – he most certainly did – but he didn’t say anything and I wouldn’t have told him anyways.

It wasn’t even that there was a story I could tell. I couldn’t say that I hated birthdays because of one certain event that had occurred, no, I just hated them overall. And being in the city I had grown up in plus playing a show here certainly didn’t make things better.

“Okay, I’m going to wait for you to get ready. The car is already standing outside so hurry up.” Brendon eventually said and I stopped moving for a second. “What do you mean? You guys can already drive away and I’m going to take a cab to the hotel.” “What do you mean? I figured you’d stay with me like usually?”

On many tours, the last show had taken place in Las Vegas and I used to stay at Brendon’s place for one night which had never been a problem because the apartment he was living in was big and I had slept in the guest room. But now something had changed and I felt weird even thinking about staying at Brendon’s place. “Oh no, Billie has already booked a hotel for me and the few others who aren’t living here. Unfortunately he hasn’t been able to get one directly after the show which is why I’ll fly away in the early morning hours.”

Brendon looked almost shocked, yeah, if I didn’t know different I would’ve said that he looked shocked. “So soon?” I nodded. “Yeah, nothing is holding me here.” “Don’t you want to visit your mother?” He then asked and I found that so inappropriate considering that his father was in a coma and Brendon hadn’t visited him yet, also we never talked about family. We just didn’t.

“Another time.” I eventually just said and Brendon nodded, maybe realizing that he wasn’t to blame me here. “But you could still stay at my place. It’d be fun.” I wondered what exactly would be fun at staying in Brendon’s bald apartment with nothing personal but a record player along with a record collection in his living room.

I had always wondered where the books where located but had figured that they were probably in his bedroom which I had never seen before. I used to wonder what the latter looked like but then had had to realize that it wasn’t my right to do so – I wouldn’t show Brendon my own bedroom either. And he hadn’t been in my apartment ever.

The only one who had visited me once was Spencer, right after I had moved to New York, when we had still been semi-friends and when I had been at least a little bit optimistic. It had been shortly after we had released our first album and when we had been about to go on tour. From there on, it had only gone downhill.

“Ok, why not ,actually?” I eventually said, wondering what I was actually doing. Brendon looked puzzled. “I’m going to stay at your place for one night. But I’ll have to leave early tomorrow so don’t complain about that.” I laughed, maybe someone had possessed me.

“Do whatever.” Brendon said with a cold expression and I wondered why he was like that now, why he had seemed so enthusiastic about me staying with him before while he now didn’t seem to care really. Then he turned around as if we had never talked and I threw in a pill of Oxycodone. Molly would do it later because this would certainly be a long day.

Eventually, I started packing my things as well which wasn’t much work because I barely carried anything with me – some clothes of which most were stinking, my keys and wallet, a pillow, a couple of records and the rest of my drugs which wasn’t much either.

When I finally exited the tour bus which had accompanied us in the last weeks, I breathed in the fresh air as if I hadn’t been on the outside for years. It certainly felt like that. Even though it was barely 11 am, it was so hot that I felt like I would start melting soon. I couldn’t wait to finally get back to New York.

As Brendon had said, a car was waiting in front of the tour bus and I tried to recall a time where we hadn’t had that indulgence yet, it was weird. When I entered the vehicle, only Billie and Brendon were in there, the others had probably already left which I wouldn’t complain about. It felt like tour was already over because most of us were heading home today but there was still one last show we needed to play.

Neither Billie nor Brendon looked at me when I sat down next to the manager and the driver started the vehicle. We had stopped in a suburb to avoid much attention I figured so it’d probably take about one hour until we’d arrive in the center of the city where I knew Brendon lived in.

As for Billie, I knew that he lived somewhere in California, a city whose name I never minded to remember. He had been born there and he even had a wife which I couldn’t picture when I saw him partying with us. Even though he was almost fifteen years older than I was, it didn’t feel like that. It felt like he was in his mid-20s instead of his mid-30s.

I appreciated the silence because I didn’t feel like talking. I barely did actually, preferred the company of whisky and coke, the screaming fans at our shows were already too much social interaction for me. It was either the drugs or a one night stand with a guy I’d never see again and whose name I’d never care to remember.

Eventually, the car stopped and I figured that we had arrived at the hotel which looked fancy. It had probably been built in the last couple of years because I had never seen the building before. Billie looked at me expectantly but then it was Brendon who interfered. “Ryan is going to stay at my place.” He said and the manager’s expression twitched, I didn’t know why. I had always stayed at Brendon’s apartment, that wasn’t anything new.

“Ok, whatever.” He said and like Brendon before, left the car, grabbed his travel bag and entered the hotel, leaving me wondering why I was doing this. I could’ve stayed in the hotel too but no, instead I chose Brendon’s apartment.

The younger guy looked at me for a second and then shrugged. There were so many things I didn’t understand about Brendon Boyd Urie. Actually, there were barely things I _did_ understand. I used to think that the Mormon was a boring person but the last few months had proven me how wrong I had been. Everyone – everyone, no matter how boring a person appeared to be – was carrying some secrets with them, things they didn’t tell anybody, and for some reason I was desperate to know what Brendon was hiding.

I wanted to know why the paparazzi had claimed that his sister had tried to kill their father. I wanted to know why he hadn’t left the band to see his father who was in a coma or why he hadn’t left the band in general. I certainly would’ve. And it sucked that I wanted to know all of this because I wasn’t supposed to want it.

Minutes later we arrived at the apartment complex I already knew and I exited the car, grabbing mine’s and Brendon’s stuff and waiting for him to follow me. It was only noon so we still had a couple of hours until we’d had to head out for the venue. The guitarist fetched his key and we took the elevator up to the 7th floor where his apartment was located at.

And when I entered it, everything looked like it used to when I had been here the last time a couple of years ago which had probably been in the summer of `84, when we had finished the US tour for our second album _Dreams And Nightmares_.

Brendon had never been a fancy person. Even though he was famous and he certainly could’ve afforded a bigger apartment, he was still living here and I respected that. We were standing in the living room in which a corner sofa was located opposite of the TV and a big shelf with several records along with a record player. Next to that was the kitchen and behind that was a small corridor from which several doors lead from. One lead to the bathroom, another one to Brendon’s own bedroom, the third to the guestroom and the fourth to another room which I had never stepped into.

“Ensconce yourself, I guess.” Brendon finally said which were the first words he had directed at me since he had left the tour bus. And suddenly I felt like we were in a completely different world. In a world in which _Inside Booze_ , tours, drugs, Billie and all the other shit didn’t exist. I didn’t know if I liked that.

“Do you want something to drink?” Brendon asked politely as I sat down on the sofa. I played along. “Coffee. Could you please make some coffee? I didn’t get some in the tour bus and I’m craving it.” “Will do that.” Brendon replied, grinning, and I wondered if I was maybe just overanalyzing things. I used to do that all the time.

“Do you mind if I smoke in here?” I then asked as he was getting the coffee machine going. I knew that he minded it but he said “No.” and I figured that I was provoking him to test out how soon I could go. I nodded, fetching the pack of cigarettes out of my pocket along with a lighter which I then used. I felt Brendon’s intense glance when I ignited the cigarette but when I looked up, he was already looking somewhere else.

“Have you ever smoked?” I then asked, the noise of the working coffee machine in the background. When Brendon nodded, I figured that smoking was something almost everyone had tried at some point.

“Do you want to do it again?” I continued asking, holding my cigarette out to him. I expected him to decline, saying something like that it was against what he believed in, that he hadn’t liked it, that he wouldn’t do it again, so I was actually surprised when he nodded, grabbed the cigarette and inhaled the smoke almost professionally.

I found it weirdly intimate to share a cigarette, ones lips at the exact same point as the other person’s ones had been. And in this moment, Brendon looked like he had never done anything else than smoking. This certainly wasn’t the Mormon Brendon Urie I had met years ago. This wasn’t the Brendon Urie from half a year ago who hadn’t even looked at alcohol or drugs.

Something had changed in these past months and as I was watching him smoking, exhaling the smoke in an artistic way which looked incredibly hot yet disturbing, I figured that I’d give everything to get the old Brendon back, the boring Brendon.


	7. Feeling Whitney

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone!  
> My best friend who also happens to be my only constant reader is currently visiting me and she's kinda forcing me to upload my weekly chapter. She's probably going to dislike it but, well, here it is!  
> My life will completely change in a few days and I'll have much less time for everything but we'll see how much I'll actually write. At the moment it's not much!  
> Anyways, I wish you guys a great week! Love y'all!

I was standing in front of 40,000 people in the Sam Boyd Stadium in Whitney and when I told them to be quiet, they were. It was astonishing how much power I could have over people, how they would do everything I’d tell them, how they admired me even though they had no idea what a horrible person I was.

The show so far had sucked. We had played our usual songs and _Fleetwood Mac,_ and then Jon had started telling the crowd that Vegas was my hometown and even worse, that it was my birthday today. They had all sung ‘Happy Birthday’ and it had sounded horrible. At least Brendon hadn’t said anything and even Spencer had kept his mouth shut. Now I needed to figure something out to pay Jon back. Maybe after all he was the worst of all of us.

“Hey everyone.” I said indifferent because I didn’t have the strength to fake a smile anymore. Who cared anyways? “The superfans probably know that we’re changing one song of our set for every concert. This one… you’ll all know it. It’s a classic and a tribute to a great band.” I quickly looked at Brendon as he started to play the first riffs of _Should I Stay Or Should I Go?_ but he didn’t notice it because he was so caught up in his work.

 _The Clash_ had broken up earlier this year and every time a band disbanded, it made me think, made me wonder when we’d call it quits. They had been together for about ten years and we had founded our band more than five years ago. Eventually everything would come to an end.

There were bands like _The Who_ or _The Stones_ who already existed for more than twenty years but I couldn’t imagine still being in this band in my forties. I generally couldn’t see myself in my forties. I’d most likely be dead before I reached them, just like my father.

I tried ignoring the fans, tried ignoring Jon and Spencer, but most of all I tried to ignore Brendon and we continued with the set. When we were finally done, having given an encore and having wished everyone a good night, we exited the stage and I realized that I’d already be on the way to New York in less than twelve hours. I’d finally get away from everything, at least for a couple of weeks.

I sat down, took a towel and dried up the sweat all over my body, the rest of the band did the same, and then Brendon leaned closer towards me and laughed. “You smell like a girl.” He exclaimed which I didn’t know if I should laugh about that or be angry. “Jon laughed too. “Dude, you smell so slutty right now.” and I decided to just play along. “I’d say, it makes me feel less lonely.” Technically, one could call me a slut. If having sex with dozens of people was considered being one, then I certainly was a slut. Fine with me.

Brendon looked puzzled. “No, he said you smell like a slut.” and laughed and then, somehow, we were all laughing. Billie joined us, a confused look on his face probably because one hadn’t heard _Inside Booze_ laugh together in a while, and then the moment was already over and it was awkward.

It was only then that I realized that the tour was now officially over. It had been our last concert and we’d be free for a while now. I had no idea what the future would keep ready for us but I doubted that we’d still be a band in five years, maybe not even in one.

“Who wants to celebrate?” Our manager eventually asked and I cheered. I didn’t want to celebrate because there was nothing we had accomplished really, but I just wanted to get drunk, fuck someone real quick and forget about everything around me. Jon and Spencer nodded too so it was only Brendon who declined – as always.

It was that contradictory behavior that I found so weird about him, especially in recent times. A year ago, I had thought that he was that boring guy but now I knew that he wasn’t, had never been, and that there were certain things that he kept hidden deep inside of him, just like everyone else did.

One part of me was sad that he wasn’t coming with us because maybe I had thought he would now, but the other part was glad, maybe hoping that it’d go back to as it used to be between us. When both our shields hadn’t been crumbling yet and when we had both been strangers to the other person.

Billie had chosen a trashy club in the suburb in which most of the roadies went with us so that we were a group of almost fifteen people overall. I probably liked clubs like these the most, those where it was so dark that one could barely recognize the other person, where it didn’t matter when one spilled a bit of one’s drink and where one didn’t need to adhere to certain rules. Those clubs in which whippings where daily business and nobody would care about famous people like we were. Those were my favorite clubs.

After we sat down in a corner, I took everyone’s order and went to the bar, remembering a time where money had still mattered, where Spencer and I had illegally bought alcohol from a random person instead of getting fake IDs to buy alcohol in a bar because that had been too expensive. Sometimes I wondered if I preferred the time where I had felt miserable but at least had had friends or now where I still felt miserable but was able to afford everything I wanted. Both was pretty shitty, I had to admit.

I ordered a bottle of _Jack Daniel’s_ along with many shot glasses and the bartender placed everything on a tablet I certainly wouldn’t be able to carry. “Could you possibly help me delivering this to that table?” I motioned towards the table band and crew were sitting at. The guy smirked. “Only because you’ve asked so nice, Ryan Ross.”

For a second I was shocked because I hadn’t expected him to know who I was. Usually people reacted different, would freak out or scream and would want my autograph bla bla bla. But this guy was just standing there as if I was a random person and I liked that.

We went to the table, or rather he went there and I followed him, not carrying anything, and shortly before we arrived there, he turned towards me, smirked again and said “I’m taking a break in less than an hour. Maybe you’ll happen to be on the toilet than.” His expression was indifferent and I shrugged because someone had recognized me.

I often got offers like that, so often that it made me wonder if there was just something naturally gay on me or if the guys I had fucked before were talking about it. It probably was the latter or maybe a mixture of both.

“Here’s the man of the hour.” Billie eventually exclaimed and the bartender looked at me one last time before he turned around to continue working. “How does it feel to have finished the by far most successful tour of your career – at least until now?” I wondered if there would be even more successful tours in the future. That thought frightened me.

“Feels great, man. I’ll happily head back home tomorrow. To be honest, I’ve quite missed New York.” I laughed and the others at the table did too, probably out of politeness. “Yeah, right, I often forget that you’re living in New York. We’re all here at the west coast and you’re more than 2,500 miles away on the east coast.” Spencer interfered and I wondered if he realized that I not only had moved to New York because I loved the city, but even more to bring a big distance between me and the other band members. And also, Las Vegas was a hellhole.

Even when one still could’ve considered Spencer and me best friends and when I had still been a little bit more optimistic, I had already wanted to get away as far away from Vegas as possible. New York had seemed to be the perfect place and now it had turned out to be the perfect choice.

I finally took a shot and downed it immediately, then took another and repeated the procedure. After some time I saw the bartender leave the room, giving me a suspicious look but I ignored it and instead took another shot until I finally felt the alcohol kicking in. I didn’t know how much time had passed, couldn’t tell at all how late it was, but eventually I felt a sudden wave of tiredness floating over me.

It was that weird tired feeling I always felt when a mixture of coke, Molly and whisky was cursing through my blood. My mind felt awake, maybe I wasn’t able to act rational but my mind certainly felt awake though my body felt so tired that it almost hurt. That contradiction was confusing me every time and it was always too late that I realized that nothing else but properly sleeping would help against that.

One could take any drug one wanted and sure, they’d have the effect one wanted. They’d make someone feel more awake or the complete opposite, they’d help someone fall asleep. They’d make someone happy or they’d make someone forget everything. Drugs worked perfectly but even they had certain limits and after I had only slept for about ten hours in the last seventy-two, even I felt that. Every time the tiredness came so suddenly that I almost blacked out.

I blurrily saw the bartender coming back, expecting him to look disappointed but being surprised when he wasn’t, and then I decided that I’d just do something I barely did. I’d dip, saying that I needed to get up early tomorrow and that I was tired.

“But you never leave early. You don’t care about sleep. C’mon, you can sleep in the plane tomorrow. Also, it’s your fucking birthday!” Jon exclaimed but I just shook my head. I wasn’t able to sleep in planes, I was barely able to sleep in the tour bus, hell, I barely slept in general. 

I shook my head again and then just left, ordering a cab and giving the driver Brendon’s address which I barely even remembered. I was in a delirium and the steady noise of the engine almost made me fall asleep but then we arrived at Brendon’s apartment which I almost appreciated.

The thought of having to wake up in a couple of hours sent horrible chills over my body when I got out of the car. Maybe it was just the fresh air though. But it wasn’t actually fresh in Vegas. I gave the driver some money, not even counting it off but the fact that he eventually drove away told me that it must’ve been more than enough.

Then I heaved my body to the entrance of the apartment complex and rang the doorbell, hearing the door next to me buzzing so I could get in. I took the elevator, pressed the 7 and seconds later I was standing on the 7th floor, trying to figure out if Brendon’s apartment was located in the right or left direction.

“I’m here.” The guitarist eventually said, coming from the right side even though I had looked to the left the whole time. He looked concerned and I wondered why he did. There was no reason to. “Damn Ryan, what have you done?” Brendon then asked and his look always made me feel like he cared about me but that couldn’t be the case.

“Why haven’t you like asked Billie to accompany you or maybe asked me to pick you up or whatever? You look like you’re about to collapse.” Damn right he was. “Just tired.” I replied, not being able to move from the position I was standing at. Moments later I felt Brendon heaving me up or maybe I was just imagining that? No, he was certainly carrying me, one arm around my shoulders and the other one under my knee pits.

“Stop it.” I exclaimed, trying to free myself and Brendon actually had the guts to laugh. I wanted to punch him but, damn, I was so tired. “Why, Ryan? Why are you doing this to yourself over and over again?” Brendon then said, completely serious, at least that was what I understood. Maybe I was just hallucinating though.

He sighed and I probably fell asleep because I couldn’t remember anything anymore. I only remembered wondering why he had taken drugs himself. He certainly wasn’t the one to judge me. Nobody who had been on tour with us, was.

***

It was hot. It was so hot when I woke up and I needed way too long to understand that the sun was shining at my body, blinding me so that for a minute, I was only able to see white nothingness like I was in heaven – or at least what people imagined heaven would look like. Only, I didn’t believe in heaven or hell and if they existed, I certainly wouldn’t come to heaven.

When I turned around, I realized that instead of being in an ethereal place, I was in the guest room of Brendon’s apartment. There wasn’t much stuff in here. The bed in which I was laying captured a great part of the room, next to it was a nightstand and opposite of both stood a shelf in which a couple of books, figurines and other things were standing – nothing too personal.

When I tried to heave myself up, I almost fainted because of the pain that was crossing my head. I sighed, blurrily remembering how I had been in this club with Billie, Jon, Spencer and the others and how that sudden tiredness had overcome me until I had just left. I remembered how I had naturally taken a cab to Brendon’s apartment and how I hadn’t been able to remember if it was located at the right or left side of the hallway after I had taken the elevator. I also remembered that the Mormon had carried me though maybe that had only been my imagination. Maybe I had been because I had been too tired.

I now looked at the nightstand on which a couple of _Panadol_ and a glass of water were located at and when I took the medicine, I thought that I definitely had to call Brendon later when I was back in New York to thank him. And then I suddenly remembered it all. I’d fly back today and I had no idea how late it was.

Impatiently I went to the kitchen to have a look at the clock, only to find Brendon standing there, cooking something like it was in the middle of the day. Fuck, maybe it was. “Fuck, what time is it?” I asked desperately and that was when the guitarist turned around. He looked good. Brendon looked so good, wearing shorts that covered only one half of his thigh and a t-shirt that was just a little bit too short so I could see a tiny strip of his bare chest. And I certainly looked like shit, feeling like I could’ve slept either two or twenty hours straight.

“Oh, hey Ryan.” Brendon than started casually and I wondered how he was so damn calm while I was almost freaking out. “Do you want to eat something?” “No, I don’t want to fucking eat. I just...” I sighed, rubbing my eyes to get rid of my sleepiness. “Can you please tell me what time it is? I’m supposed to fly back home today, you know that.”

He looked at me, kind of amused, and then sat down at the bench next to the table – instead of chairs, Brendon had two benches placed on each side of the table. “There’s a clock in the corner. Have a look yourself.” Brendon only said and I was so annoyed because we both knew that I wasn’t able to read the time from my position. I got up and when I was actually able to see how late it was, I almost had a stroke. “Fuck you, it’s almost 4pm! Why haven’t you woken me up?”

I was supposed to fly away hours ago so at this point, I had missed my flight almost two times. That made me angry. It made me so angry that Brendon hadn’t woken me up but then I realized that he probably hadn’t been awake at the time I’d had to leave himself and that I should’ve used an alarm clock which I had completely forgotten.

“Damn, fuck.” I cussed, sitting down on the opposite side of Brendon, understanding why he was so amused. Well, I wasn’t. “Don’t worry. You can stay here and then you can leave in a couple of days – preferably at a later time.” He laughed – actually had the guts to laugh – and I realized that I must’ve slept for fourteen hours or something which I probably hadn’t even managed to do as a baby.

“You don’t understand.” I exclaimed infuriated. Brendon shrugged. “Yeah, I know that you hate this city. I know that you hate the strip, the people, the memories, I know that you hate everything about it, even the band, but you don’t really have a choice but to stay here until you’ll get another flight booked. And why don’t we make the best out of that time?”

I wondered what Brendon had in mind when saying ‘making the best out of the time’. We certainly thought about different things then. I blurrily remembered that I had declined the bartender yesterday even though the guy had looked good and hadn’t been that much of a fanboy. I had done it and didn’t even know why. I barely said no when someone wanted to fuck me. Maybe everything I had done yesterday had happened because I had been too tired.

“I don’t hate you.” I eventually claimed. “Well, I don’t think so.” “Don’t butter me up.” Brendon replied and I wondered if that was what I was doing. “Whatever.” I then just said and a silence spread between us, a silence that I hated because it made me uncomfortable and I never felt uncomfortable.

And that was why I continued talking. “I sometimes – often – hate you, you know? I hate you for having written that song that’s just… it’s shit. I hate you for being so different than the rest of us. I hate you for fooling me but no, you know what? I think that I just don’t understand you.” There it was again, I was talking too much shit, was exposing myself and again wished for a drug that would just make me shut up.

I expected Brendon to laugh, grin, smile, expected some kind of humorous emotion, but then he was dead serious. “I don’t understand you either, Ryan. I think that I never have. Back when Brent has led me to our former practice room and when I’ve seen you for the first time, I’ve already sensed that you’d always remain a riddle for me. Look how much time we’ve spend with each other in these past years, even just the two of us like now, but we haven’t learned anything about the other person. Isn’t that weird?”

I didn’t like where this conversation was leading to. We were starting to talk about feelings and that was something I was constantly avoiding. And the worst thing was that I had started it in the first place. I didn’t know what to say, really didn’t know at all, and tried to figure out if I was supposed to make a joke or say something intellectual. Both seemed wrong.

Eventually I laid my arms on the table and folded them into each other to rest my head on them. I didn’t want to look at Brendon Boyd Urie anymore. I really didn’t.

Seconds later I felt a soft pressure just next to the crook of my right arm which suddenly made my head turn back up. Brendon’s hand was stroking me for no apparent reason, maybe it was a subconscious gesture from his side but I felt it on every inch of my body.

It was weird to feel his bare skin directly against mine. That was something that barely happened because we didn’t really touch each other just like that. I remembered certain times where we had hugged each other when we had accomplished something great but that was a normal thing to do. And now it was already months ago. And we had certainly never touched each other like that. I had no idea what was going on.

Eventually, Brendon seemed to wake up from his trance, took his hand away and suddenly got up. “Anyways, I’ll head to St. George tomorrow because it doesn’t look good for my father. Feel free to stay in my apartment as long as you need to.” He eventually said and it was with such objectivity that it struck me.

I nodded and when Brendon left the kitchen, I felt empty. I was still able to feel the touch of his hand at the spot he had touched me and figured that I needed to head home as soon as possible. For some reason Brendon Urie was evoking feelings inside of me – they had slowly, very slowly, been building up in the last couple of years to become more and more present now – and that needed to be stopped.


	8. Fine Line

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everybody!  
> I almost forgot to upload because today was the first day at my new job and more importantly the first time I have actually had to work the whole day in months. Things will be quite different from now on but hell, I won't forget to upload! I'm quite overwhelmed now because I'm generally a person who needs a while to get used to a change. And that certainly is a big change in my life!  
> This chapter is weirdly special for me even though I don't really like it and think that it's even a bit overdone but still, it's important after all.  
> Anyways, enough of me rambling. I hope you're having a good day and would really appreciate kudos and comments!

Brendon’s father died on September 8th, 1986, almost exactly one week after his son had driven to St. George. It was almost as if Mr. Urie had waited for Brendon to come home so he could die in peace. It was Spencer who called me in the middle of the night in my New York City apartment where I had headed back to the same day Brendon had left.

“Sorry for having woken you up.” My former best friend said with a tired voice that made it sound as if he himself was the one who had been woken up. “I wasn’t sleeping yet.” I claimed which was true. I had been writing songs that I doubted would ever see the light of the day because they were too soft, too emotional, too _intimate._

“Jesus, Ryan, it’s already 2 am here. That makes it – what? – 5am for you?” He exclaimed and I nodded but then realized that Spencer couldn’t see it so I just hummed as an agreement. I sighed, Spencer sighed, and I thought that we should found a club for sighing mopers because we didn’t seem to do anything else anymore.

“It’s Brendon’s father, Ryan.” The drummer eventually started and I immediately knew what he was about to say. It was the same kind of call I had received from my mother when my own father had died. It was that slow approaching that would eventually lead to the inevitable truth. “He died a couple of hours ago. I just thought you should know that.”

I gulped, nodding again only to realize all over that Spencer couldn’t see me. “Oh… yeah… okay.” I stuttered and wanted to punch myself for how insecure I sounded. “Are you okay, Ry?” Spencer than whispered. _Ry._ I hadn’t heard him call me that in a while.

“Yeah, sure. I’m okay. I’m just… I’m really tired, you know? I should really head to bed.” “Okay, fine.” Spencer replied. “Should I call you if I hear something new? I don't think Brendon is able to do so now. He’s still in St. George and I think that he’ll probably stay there for a while.”

It was weird, I thought, that Brendon and I now had such a horrible thing in common. Both our fathers were dead and neither of us had had the best relationship with them. “Yeah, sure, you can call me.” I eventually said and declared our conversation to be over by adding “Bye.” Spencer barely got the chance to reply because then I had already hung up.

Paper sheets full with unfinished songs were lying all around me as I headed to my unmade bed which was located in the left corner of my room. My apartment, similar to Brendon’s, wasn’t really fancy either. It was probably a bit bigger than his but generally not that different.

Next to the hallway through which one entered the apartment there was a big room which combined the living room and the kitchen in the left corner. On the opposite side of that was my own bedroom and further away the bathroom, a room in which my record collection and instruments were located in and a guestroom.

My bedroom looked pretty normal too, I figured. A bed in one corner, a shelf and a sofa in another and a table and other shelves next to the door. There were several posters featuring bands and movies on the walls and some things I had kept from tours and band life in general in the shelves, but nothing overly fancy.

If there was one thing I loved about our band, it was that being rich had never gotten to our heads. Neither of us was running around swaggering how rich we were and I guessed that spoke for ourselves. The only thing I ever used all the money for were drugs and alcohol. That, I had to admit, would be much harder to get when having a normal income.

My thoughts went back to Brendon who was miles away at his parents’ house, his father having died only a couple of hours before. I also thought about Mrs. Urie who was now alone and even though I personally didn’t believe in relationships, that certainly was awful. I took a pill of _Estazolam_ and then drifted off…

_We were young again. I figured that we couldn’t be much older than eighteen or nineteen which now felt so ridiculously far away. Brendon and I were walking through the streets of a city I couldn’t identify, one of the many ones we had been on tour. It seemed to be our first tour ever and I was almost able to feel the excitement again._

_There was nobody else, it was as if we were walking through a ghost town but neither of us seemed to care. Brendon was wearing a purple llama suit, having taken the head off so I could recognize his face, and I was wearing my usual clothes._

_We walked and walked until we eventually arrived at his apartment where I took the head of the llama and put it over my head. It was weird to see through the tiny translucent areas in front of my eyes. Then we took the elevator and were in Brendon’s apartment which looked exactly as I remembered it._

_We went to the kitchen and sat down on the bench seat – each on opposite sides. Suddenly there was no llama suit anymore, only me still wearing my normal clothes and Brendon wearing only a shorts and a short t-shirt. “_ Don’t Come Around Here No More _” by Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers was playing somewhere but I ignored that. I seemed to ignore everything but Brendon’s hand that was touching me at that spot right next to the crook of my right arm._

_His eyes were melted with mine as his hand went up my arm, gently touching my shoulder and drawing me closer. And I wanted this. I wanted this so much that my arm and every other part of my body almost hurt, almost made me burst. It was so close, always so close but never enough…_

I started up from my sleep so suddenly that my head was pounding. My arm was itching and I scratched it to get rid of that feeling that wasn’t even real. But it had felt real. It had felt so damn real, Brendon and me being in his apartment where the same thing had happened again, only that we had been years younger.

Now that I was officially twenty-three, I felt like I was an old man already, wondering how people even made it past forty. It was weird what kind of shit one’s head manifested when being asleep. Dreaming was the only thing one really couldn’t control at all. And that was why I hated sleeping so much. One never knew what to expect or what would hunt one down in the upcoming night.

Eventually, I got up and went to the kitchen to make some coffee. There were few things I missed about tour life but one thing certainly was that the coffee was usually already made when I got up. Now I had to do it myself and wait for minutes.

Sometimes I thought that being alone really wasn’t good for me. At the end of the day I’d always prefer it but I actually knew that it wasn’t good for me. It made me think about everything and in recent times my thoughts were constantly cursing around a certain Mormon. Maybe it had always been like that. Maybe I had always looked at Brendon a little bit different than I had looked at the others.

But it had never been like _that._ Now, I missed the touch of his hand, bare skin against bare skin, but absolutely not in a sexual way like I was used to it. And even though I had wanted to leave Las Vegas so badly, had wanted to get away from the city, the people and everything, I now missed it. Though it wasn’t the city I missed. The latter I still hated.

 _I missed your skin when you were east._ I thought that this could be a good lyric for a cheesy love song if I’d be a person who wrote something like that. Brendon was at the east coast and I was here in New York, miles separating us, miles I suddenly felt.

When the coffee was ready, I took a cup and filled it with the essential brew. I always needed my morning coffee first, not even drugs would be taken before that. And I’d have preferred to say that I liked it black but that wasn’t the case. Instead I loved to put loads of sugar and milk in there though I always pretended that I didn’t.

I drank the cup in less than a minute which was probably even a new record for me and then thought about what I would do. I had slept for solid six hours which was good for me. For other people six hours maybe wasn’t that much but for me it was adequate.

And suddenly I had to think about the night at Brendon’s apartment where I had slept more than two times as long and that certainly never happened. I didn’t even like sleeping that much because I felt like hours of the day were wasted doing that. Not that I’d do much but writing crappy songs, partying and listening to music, but still, I didn’t like that feeling I had when I slept for more than eight hours.

As I was sitting there, I got an idea, a really crappy idea like always but one I knew I’d implement anyways because I couldn’t not do it. The telephone was a couple of feet away, standing on the edge of the kitchen counter and I figured I’d just do it. There was a book with hundreds of numbers next to it that I never called but now opened to find one specific number.

When I found it and dialed the number, I quickly thought that I was crazy but then someone else picked up the phone at the other end of the line. “Hello?” A woman’s voice said and I immediately recognized it at Brendon’s sister – the one the paparazzi had claimed would’ve tried to kill their father which was completely ridiculous.

It was only than that I realized that I had no idea what to say or why I had even called. I hated grieving or uttering one’s condolences because that was pointless but now that was exactly what I needed to do, even I knew that. “Who is there? Is this a joke?” Kyla eventually repeated more vehemently and I figured that I needed to talk, else she would hang up.

“Hey Kyla, it’s Ryan here.” I claimed which was just such a shitty beginning of a conversation with a person one barely knew. I had met her as well as Brendon’s other siblings a couple of times as well as his mother – the only one I had never met was their father actually – but I certainly couldn’t expect that one recognized me by my voice after that few meetings.

Still, she did. “Damn, Ryan Ross? How did you even find this number?” She laughed but she didn’t sound joyful, more indifferent. “Your mother gave it to me years ago. Actually, she gave it to all of us which was pretty nice.” I replied. “Listen, I wanted to…” I started talking but she interrupted me. “Express your condolences? Well, we don’t need that, thanks.” She said harshly, so harshly that it was already suspicious. She seemed to notice that too.

“I’m sorry, it’s just… it’s too much. We’re all at home now but I don’t think it’ll ever be a home for either of us. Mom’s going crazy and… well, anyways, I figure you wanted to speak with Brendon?” It was too much information, too much confusion in a couple of sentences. I nodded because maybe that was what I wanted to do but again realized that she wasn’t able to see me.

“Yeah, sure.” I then said and Kyla said something like that she’d search him. Seconds later I heard her walk away and figured that she had placed the receiver on the table because I was still able to hear background noises – indistinct chatter, door closing and rustling. Right when I was close to freaking out, I finally heard someone picking up the receiver and then it was Brendon’s voice who greeted me.

I hadn’t expected this reaction of my body when I heard his voice. After we had been on tour together for months it was always a little bit weird yet satisfying when we hadn’t had to see each other every day, when we would head back home and would create a distance between us as a band and ourselves, but it was never like that. It was eight days since I had last seen Brendon and I felt like it was eight months.

“C’mon Ryan, I know it’s you. What do you want?” The guitarist asked, half annoyed, half intrigued. I sighed, wanting to say something but not knowing what. There didn’t seem to be right words for this situation, I didn’t seem to find right words in general.

“I really don’t have the time for this immatureness. My father has died yesterday, _fuck,_ and now you call here to… I don’t even know what. Do you want to insult me? Well, fuck you.” Brendon was raging, misunderstanding me completely but how was he able to understand when I didn’t talk.

I felt that he was close to hanging up, somehow I felt that, so I said something I already knew I’d regret but the words slipped out of my mouth. “I miss you, B. Damn, I miss you.” The fact that I had said that twice, with such desperation, made me want to kill myself even more.

I immediately hung up, ignored Brendon’s incoming calls and figured that now it was a good time to leave the country and change my identity to a name like ‘William’ or ‘Michael’. Why had I just done that? Why had I said those words I had never said to anyone and why the hell were they true?


	9. Fade into you - BRENDON'S POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here's that...

I tried to call him again and again and again. So many times that at some point Kyla came back to the room where the telephone was located at and took it away from me. “What the hell is going on, Brendon?” She asked and I wished I could answer the question. I had no idea what was going on, didn’t even know if what I had just heard had been real or if my mind had changed up the words to its own pleasure.

“Ryan has said something and I just want to know if I had heard it right.” I replied which was true but I would never tell her what it had been. Kyla looked at me suspiciously and I shook my head. “Anyways, we shouldn’t think about Ryan now. It’s… you know, our father has died less than twenty four hours ago and we should only think about him and pray for him.”

It sounded so fake, the words even sounded fake for me, but I knew that people expected me to say something like that. Everyone expected us to act as if our father had been a saint and as if his sudden death had shocked us all.

On one side I could understand our mother, I really could because Mormons wouldn’t ever tolerate the truth, they would dishonor our father and that was certainly not what our mother wanted, but on the other side I thought that the truth needed to come out in order for our family to work better on the inside. If only my mother wouldn’t care so much about being a faithful Mormon.

And now that our father was dead, the only thing or rather the only one I could think about was Ryan. Ryan fucking Ross. I hated him for that. I was supposed to grieve my father but instead I only had the singer in mind.

And even though I never would’ve thought that I’d think like that, I now wanted tour life back. I wanted to be on the road where nothing mattered but the upcoming show, where there was no routine and where one could do whatever. But I didn’t want that back because of tour itself, no, I wanted it back because of the lead singer.

I would never forget that night in Seattle where Ryan and I had had to share a hotel room which none of us had minded as much as we had been supposed to and where I had started playing random songs until I had eventually showed him _Sound Of Nothing._ I would never forget the expression on his face, how I had really been able to look past his massive wall for once and how such a sad expression had emerged on his face that it had broken my heart even more.

I had never written a song like _Sound Of Nothing_ that was so honest, so heartbreaking and so breathtaking. I hadn’t thought that I’d ever write something like that but then I had played it again in front of ten thousands of people and they had reacted similar to how Ryan had reacted, had started crying and sobbing, and it was in that moment that I had known that I had created either a masterpiece or something I rather shouldn’t have created.

***

One week later it was the day of my father’s funeral. I didn’t feel anything, well, maybe the only thing I felt was a little bit of anger but other than that, I was completely indifferent. I got dressed – a black shirt along with a black jacket and fancy black trousers like one was supposed to, and then got downstairs where my siblings and there spouses, my mother and other relatives I hadn’t seen in literal years were waiting. Everyone wanted to know how I was doing and I thought that it was certainly the wrong day to ask that.

For years I had already been wondering who knew who my father had really been, now more than ever. My mother had always done so well at hiding it, at finding good excuses but of course all children had found the truth out sooner or later.

I answered all questions as good as possible but didn’t even remember what I had said minutes later. It all seemed pointless. And then it was time to head to the cemetery. The day flew by, but not in a good way. I blurrily witnessed that someone read the Scriptures and that we sung something out of the Hymnals, I blurrily recalled how some people were saying something about my father but I couldn’t – couldn’t continue telling lies –, and how eventually the casket with his body was lowered into the ground. It all felt like the worst nightmare I had ever had.

When we were back in our house later, I couldn’t manage to eat anything of the food my mother and siblings had prepared as well as guests had brought. There were tons of casseroles and I wondered why people were always bringing so much food that nobody would ever be able to finish eating.

I went to the patio, definitely understanding why so many people craved toxic substances. Right in that moment I would’ve given much for at least a joint. It was raining which barely happened here, especially not in the summer months – and even though it was officially September, it still was almost 90 degrees. Now the rain fit perfectly to the overall mood and I had always liked it. I had always liked the sound of the rain when I was at home and the smell afterwards, especially when it was so hot.

Eventually Matt joined me, leaning against the railing and looking at a point somewhere far away. Since Matt was almost ten years older than me, he had always acted a bit boastful around me, as if he knew everything better. Even now that I was famous he still acted like that and I doubted that he would ever stop.

“Is everything okay?” He asked like so many other people had done today and I wondered why they were all asking that. How were things supposed to be okay? “As okay as it can be, I guess.” I replied and he nodded. I realized that it probably must’ve been a lot harder for Matt back in the days. Because he had been the oldest one, he had realized things much sooner and now he had lost his father. We all had but Matt and he had always had a different relationship than the other siblings and him.

“Do you mind if I…” He started, fetching what I thought was a normal cigarette out of his pocket but then identified as a pre-rolled joined. “Only if you don’t let me take a drag myself.” I laughed, that laugh that one applied when trying to loosen the mood but the latter certainly wouldn’t work today.

“Sure, whatever.” Matt shrugged, grabbed a lighter and started smoking. It wasn’t something I hadn’t seen my brother do before but I hadn’t seen him blazing in a while. For a while I had tried all of that shit myself but I doubted that that would ever work. Maybe it was something in our DNA that forced us to take drugs sooner or later.

I took the joint and naturally inhaled the smoke, remembering a time where _Inside Booze_ hadn’t existed yet, where I hadn’t known Ryan yet and where me and my siblings had secretly smoked from time to time. Maybe that was a time I wanted back. Life had been easier back then.

“You’ve never tried… harder stuff, haven’t you?” Matt eventually asked and I thought about telling him the truth but then pondered that I probably shouldn’t. “No, of course not.” I lied and Matt looked at me suspiciously. “Have you ever considered taking something?” He continued asking and I wondered why he was asking those questions today. “Maybe. I mean, I’m constantly surrounded by coke, Molly, LSD and whatever. Sure I’ve considered it but I’ve never actually taken it, that’s a difference.”

Matt nodded again and maybe we understood each other on a completely different level. For some reason he had become my favorite sibling. Even with all this boastfulness, with him acting like he was so much smarter than me, I had grown to enjoy Matt’s company. As a child and teenager I had hated it and I still didn’t like it as much but now I felt that overall Matt was a great guy to hang out with. Though we barely did the latter anymore.

“Well, be careful, little brother.” He added, gave me the joint and left me alone. I took a couple last drags and then threw it on the floor to stomp on it and kicked it in a bush.

I felt like everything that had happened in the last couple of months was just part of a fucked up fever dream I was having. My father couldn’t be dead, no, that person that had subconsciously terrorized us for years couldn’t be dead just like that.

Overall, I felt bad for not feeling too bad. There was a part of me that actually felt like crying, that part that blurrily remembered a time when I had been a little boy where everything had been different, but the greater part of me didn’t know what reaction was appropriate. I felt like I was playing a role but someone had forgotten to give me the script.

It was a couple of minutes later that I felt someone watching me and when I looked up, I realized that it was no one else but Ryan Ross, leaning against our mailbox as if he did that every day.

He was smiling, or at least he appeared to be, and I wondered if that was another part of my fever dream. Maybe my actual self was lying in its Vegas apartment, having a fever it couldn’t sweat out.

“Ryan… What the hell… I mean…” I stuttered after having approached him, wondering how he had come here because I had been so caught up in my thoughts that I hadn’t heard anything. He was still smiling and I wondered if it was a real smile. At that point I couldn’t distinguish the real and the fake one anymore.

“I’ve talked to Spencer yesterday and he told me that it was your father’s funeral today. I don’t know, I thought I should be here.” Ryan said as if we were the best friends, as if flying across the whole country for the other person was a thing we’d usually do. He didn’t mention the phone call and I didn’t know if he meant what he had said.

“Well, as you can see, you’re a bit too late. I mean everyone’s still here but the funeral itself is over.” I sighed. “No, I know. I don’t exactly like funerals, you know?” He replied and I nodded. Of course I knew that. I knew that Ryan hadn’t attended his father’s funeral and wanted to know why more than anything else but it really wasn’t my business to ask.

“Why did you come then?” I counter questioned, trying to lean against the tree in our dooryard as casually as Ryan was leaning against the mailbox but knowing that I was failing.

“I don’t know, Brendon, why not?” He replied and I could’ve given him thousand reasons why he shouldn’t have come – we barely knew each other anymore, we didn’t really talk, he hated funerals, he wasn’t nice – but instead, I kept my mouth shut. “Yeah, okay. Do you maybe want to come in? I’m sure everyone will be happy to see you.” I doubted the latter but well, phrases of civility.

Ryan vehemently shook his head. “No, I don’t. I actually don’t really feel like meeting other people now, you understand?” I nodded because that was something I really did understand. I could completely relate to wanting to be alone, curling up in a corner and disregarding everything. Though for some reason I wanted to be around Ryan.

“What would you have done if I would’ve been on the inside?” I laughed and for a moment forgot that my father was dead and that I still didn’t know how to feel about that. Ryan shrugged but then ignored the question. “Let’s just walk around here. We can go wherever you want, I honestly don’t care but I just don’t want to go inside.” He motioned towards my parents’ house and I almost complained about him being so demanding but then figured that I didn’t feel like seeing all my relatives myself.

“You know what? I feel like getting completely drunk.” I then added and wondered when things had changed so much between Ryan and me. It had been somewhere on tour, somewhere between Vancouver and Seattle, Los Angeles and Phoenix.

And then that was what we did. We went into a bar in which barely other customers were because it was a weekday and this wasn’t Las Vegas where people would go to bars 24/7, no, this was St. George and I still couldn’t believe that Ryan Ross was actually here.

After a couple of drinks Ryan started talking about a weird dream he’d had about some guy wearing a purple llama suit though I didn’t mind to remember the details. We talked about tour, about the cities, the arenas and the people, about everything we had seen. Basically we talked about everything but our phone call one week ago.

I wondered if maybe the reason why Ryan had come here was because he had missed me, just like he had whispered when we had talked via phone. And I wondered if I maybe had missed him as much. Though maybe I was just imagining all of that, making up a story I had no idea where it would lead to.

“ _Livin’ On A Prayer._ Oh, how fitting, isn’t that exactly what you’re doing, Brendon?” Ryan eventually said and only then I realized that the hit single from Bon Jovi’s new album was currently playing in the bar. It was a good song, actually it was a great song, but I had heard it so often while we had been on tour that I now couldn’t hear it anymore.

“Fuck you, Ryan.” I replied annoyed and he looked at me with that dark expression that haunted me in my dreams. “You still think that I’m sitting in a church praying the whole day? Well, I’m not.” I chugged down the last quarter of the whisky that had still been in the glass to underline my words. “I’m in a bar with you, drinking alcohol, smoking a joint, and you know exactly that a faithful Mormon shouldn’t do that. But I’m obviously still doing it.”

I refilled my glass and Ryan’s with the bottle _Jack Daniel’s_ we had ordered and our eyes didn’t unlock for just one second. “So, why are you doing it suddenly?” The singer asked and I shook my head. “I’ve done it before, Ryan, I just haven’t been so offensive. I had liked the picture I was conveying, I had liked that you thought I was who I pretended to be but now… I guess I don’t anymore. Meet the real Brendon.” I laughed, reaching out my arms, knowing that that wasn’t the real me either. Maybe it was like five percent closer to who I really was but it wasn’t the real me. And I knew that who Ryan pretended to be wasn’t his real self either.

Ryan looked at me skeptically and then we clinked glasses because, well, maybe that was what people like us did: sitting in a bar, talking about unimportant stuff without ever reaching a destination because neither was being completely open. Maybe I’d never be completely honest about anything. Though I had already started lying long before I had joined the band.

“Wow.” Ryan then said, nothing else but that powerful word and then we simply stopped talking. I watched him lifting his glass to his lips, watched his Adam’s apple move as he swallowed the substance and then looked away before he’d realize that I had watched him.

When we decided to leave the bar, I wanted to pay but then Ryan was faster and paid for both of us which I didn’t complain about because I was too wasted. It was that weird state of drunkenness where one still knew what one was doing, where one’s mind was still working but where one’s body was lagging behind.

Ryan smiled again as we left the bar and I wondered where I was supposed to go now because I certainly wouldn’t go home like that. Ryan seemed to have read my mind because he then suggested that I could stay in his hotel just for the night, no big deal – though I thought that it was.

I wondered how he had managed to get a flight plus a hotel booked in less than twenty-four hours but it probably was easy when being famous. I had never really used that benefit.

We took a cab to the building I knew well because I had worked there years ago, back when I had still lived in St. George and gone to high school here. Now it was a bit more decomposed yet still manageable and when we entered the foyer, I realized that they had renovated the hotel on the inside.

Ryan headed towards the elevator and I followed him – it was weird because I didn’t carry anything with me – and then it stopped on the 7th floor, exposing a freshly painted hallway with doors in both directions. Ryan went to the right side and I continued following him until he stopped, took out keys and opened a door which led to an average room with a double bed with nightstands on each side, a table with two chairs in the other corner and a wardrobe.

Only the little bag standing on the floor next to the right side of the bed bespoke that he had already been here before. I wondered how long he had planned to stay. Considering the bag, it didn’t seem to be a long time but why would he come here for just one day?

“Where do you want to sleep?” Ryan eventually asked which confused me. “I mean, on which side of the bed. I don’t care honestly.” I was overwhelmed with the whole situation and then threw in: “I don’t even want to sleep yet. It’s pretty early.” He laughed, then shook his head and smiled at me – that smile I barely saw and I had always interpreted as something good because it barely happened.

“Yeah, but we can already clarify that, can’t we?” He asked almost innocently and a part deep inside of me twitched. It was as if someone had flicked a switch because suddenly I got very sad, so sad that I almost started crying. Most likely it was the stupid alcohol that made me feel stupid things.

And what happened after that I couldn’t even explain anymore. Whisky had always made me emotional though, completely the opposite effect it had on Ryan. I found myself hugging him or rather clinging to his body, wrapping my arms around him like he was my buoy that’d keep me from drowning in the deep sea.

First I noticed Ryan was stiffening but then I felt his arm clambering around me as well and when he said: “It’s okay, Brendon. Everything will be okay eventually.” like he really believed it and like he knew exactly what was going on inside of me even though he had no fucking idea, it was too much for me.

I started crying, not caring about who he was, who I was or what we had gone through. I cried not caring about anything but his arms holding me like I was his last hope as well which certainly was just the whisky obscuring my mind because Ryan wasn’t such a thing, he was just _there._

He probably thought that I was crying because of my father who was now dead, maybe because I was regretting not having been there earlier, but, oh, if it was only that. He didn’t know anything about me and I didn’t know anything about him and maybe that was why I was really crying after all.


End file.
